Criminal Minds: What Came After
by Forestwytch
Summary: Third part of the Pip Harker trilogy, documenting Rossi's life and work in the BAU following the events of Criminal Minds: The Long Summer. Follows season 7 onwards. Very much work in progress, slow updates.
1. It Takes a Village (S7E1)

_A/n: I wanted to get this out because it ties up the loose ends of The Long Summer, but the rest of the tale is nowhere near complete. I'm still writing, but I'm not sure when the next chapter will be._

* * *

_It Takes a Village (S7E1)_

_**Be beautiful if you can, wise if you want to, but be respected - that is essential - Anna Gould**_

Rossi wasn't sure what was worse. Waiting with the team to see if they were all going to be called as witnesses by a Senate oversight committee, or standing next to Pip unable to ask her just how involved in the clandestine operation she'd been. It wasn't like the last time he'd asked had gone too well, JP's help notwithstanding. Ravishing her had won him an apology, but not an explanation. It had been a tense few days between them, waiting for the hearing.

No one was talking, that's what made him uncomfortable. Even in the worst of times they held each other up, and waiting in that corridor it felt to Rossi like he was standing on his own, even in the crowd. Strauss lingered on the edges of the group, on the phone with someone or other but clearly no more useful than usual. Which was to say, none at all. At least it didn't smell like she'd had a drink; small comfort.

The heating had been turned off deliberately, he was sure of it. The corridor where they waited was just the wrong side of cool to be comfortable. Not cold enough to warrant complaint, but enough that standing still for more than a few minutes brought a chill that couldn't be shifted. Sitting down wasn't an option, the stone benches were a recipe for instant frostbite of the ass. Rossi stuffed his hands in his pockets in an effort to both warm them and prevent him from reaching out to hold Pip.

It had become more of an effort to keep their relationship under wraps. Not for her, Pip thrived on secrecy and misdirection. For him though, it was a daily ordeal to watch everything he did or said in public in case he let something slip that he ought not. Their evenings together were always beautiful and loving, but outside the privacy of their respective homes they had to be so careful. It was draining and if he was honest, starting to get seriously tiresome. He loved her and he didn't care who knew. He wanted the whole damn world to know that such beautiful woman had decided he was the one she was going to be with. It was neither logical nor sensible given their positions, but that was the way he felt.

They got called in one by one, starting with JJ. It made sense Rossi supposed, as the former spokeswoman for the team; rather than the boss, especially as it hadn't been like he or Hotch had been involved in most of the off-the-books work they'd been doing. Part of him had quite liked being in charge, a thankfully small and easily silenced part. Apart from the paperwork, the volume of HR-type work was ridiculous. If someone had even a simple cold, there had to be a risk assessment – if a suspect caught something from one of them, there could be consequences. If someone was late in, there had to be a follow-up – why were they late? Was there a problem in their personal life that could affect their work? It was never ending and the frown lines embedded in Hotch's forehead had new twins on Rossi's own.

JJ looked furious as she was escorted out of the hearing and into a side room. The implication was clear – there was to be no chance of collaboration regarding what was said and what was not, no opportunity to warn others of the line of questioning to give them time to prepare. Not a good sign. Somehow, it felt like the verdict was already decided and the hearing was merely a formality to satisfy the paperwork requirements, something to justify the decision already taken to suspend them permanently or break up the team.

Morgan was next, no doubt because he had started the whole ball rolling. They could only hope he kept his cool. He hadn't been impressed with the circumstance surrounding Emily's "death" and if his anger bled over into his testimony…well, it could be disastrous for all of them. He'd worked long and hard to find Doyle, fuelled by his grief over the loss of Emily. To have his grief thrown back in his face, to be told the risks he'd taken had been over naught had to be hard to bear. He felt like he'd been used, and made no secret of it.

Garcia was nervous before the hearing even started and became more and more nervous as the clock ticked around, shifting from one foot to the other and wringing her hands. She didn't do well when her actions were questioned, and even worse when people threatened her family of profilers. She hadn't been comfortable with hiding what she was doing with Morgan all summer, Rossi hadn't needed Pip to tell him that. The entire investigation had set her on edge and the waiting was only making it more distressing for her. Something Rossi could _certainly_ sympathise with. She was quivering with frightened indignation as she was ushered inside.

"What the fuck is _she_ doing here?" growled Pip, stepping away from him a little. By then, it was only himself, Hotch and Pip standing together in the corridor, Reid having found some interesting architecture to occupy his oversized brain with while he waited. Strauss had wandered off too, hopefully not because she had a pressing appointment with the bottle almost certainly hidden in her bag.

Rossi craned his head to see a familiar tiny figure making her way towards them. "Oh no, not again," he muttered, and nudged Hotch's arm. "We ought to find out what that's all about."

Hotch gave him an exasperated look before following the direction of Pip's gaze. His eyes narrowed. "Not exactly a welcome addition to the day," he murmured, ignoring Rossi's questioning look and making his own way to where Pip stood with her arms folded defensively.

Rossi huffed and followed.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Pip asked, making no secret of her irritation.

The other woman smiled. "I had other business in Washington and heard there was a situation with the BAU. I thought I might…"

"Butt in without asking, just for a change?" sneered Pip.

A fleeting, and somewhat mischievous smile flashed across the tiny woman's face. "Exactly," she said. "I understand the entire team has been suspended?" She glanced at Hotch and Rossi, stood awkwardly to one side of them; quite clearly listening to their conversation, but equally clearly not part of it.

She glanced at them, and then seemed to dismiss them, something that made Rossi's stomach twist. There was something about the woman that made his skin prickle, a sensation akin to anxiety. It felt like he was out in the field with no weapon and no backup, nothing to help him survive but his wits.

Pip nodded. "A weapons-dealing terrorist got killed and everyone's crying about it."

She squirmed under the assessing gaze of the other woman, something else that put Rossi on edge. Pip was completely immune to that kind of look except it seemed, from _that_ woman.

Pip bit her lip. "There may have been some rule-bending along the way," she admitted, "and two agents died."

The woman nodded, as if Pip hadn't told her anything she didn't already know. "Do you need my help, Philippa?"

"Not after last time," interjected Rossi, before Pip could reply. No way was he going to stand by while Pip got herself in hock with the peculiar, powerful woman again. Hotch grunted his agreement, the fabled Hotchner glare in full force.

Unfortunately, the woman seemed impervious. She ignored them both, focussing on Pip, who also made no indication she'd heard Rossi's strident denial.

Pip chewed her lip some more as she considered. "What would it cost me?"

"Harker, no!" hissed Hotch. He was ignored by both women, much as Rossi had been. It felt like they were only observers of the conversation, not part of it, isolated somehow by a kind of invisible forcefield like they had in the movies.

The woman cocked her head to one side like a bird. Assessing, considering. _Calculating_. "Would that matter?" she asked shrewdly.

Pip swung her gaze to Hotch, only grazing across Rossi in passing. She stared up at him, hazel eyes boring into brown. "No," she said finally.

Rossi both felt and heard Hotch's sharp intake of breath next to him, like his friend had just been sucker-punched in the gut.

"And if they want blood?" pressed the woman, whose name Rossi still didn't know. "A neck to hang this sorry mess around? Would you sacrifice your career?"

That was it. Rossi had heard enough, it was time to put a stop to the conversation. Pip halted his instinctive step toward her tormentor with a firm hand to his chest, without breaking eye contact with Hotch.

She nodded without hesitation. "If necessary."

Hotch shifted uneasily. "Pip…" he murmured, before stopping, apparently uncertain.

Rossi stole a quick glance at Hotch in shock. Hotch had never used her nickname before. Just what had happened between them that night over a bottle of his very expensive scotch? What _had_ they talked about? Because it looked like there had been a dramatic shift in the boundaries of their previously entirely professional relationship. He glanced back and forth at two of them. The air between them practically _sizzled_, if he were stupid enough to try and get in the middle, he'd probably get cremated.

Pip gave Hotch a gentle smile. "What's the number of the bus, Hotch?" she asked softly.

Rossi's mouth dropped open. She'd called him "Hotch", not "sir". They hadn't just moved the boundaries, they'd completely re-drawn the entire fucking _map_. Pip at her most vociferous, even in mid-rant, would still always call Hotch "sir". Rossi frowned, utterly confused by Pip's reference to public transport, but another quick glance at Hotch told him that not only did Hotch know _exactly_ what she meant, he didn't like it. Hotch's lips where thin and pinched, his eyes narrowed, the vein at his temple thudding away, all telegraphing his feelings about their exchange.

The tiny woman smiled. Rossi didn't like that smile. It was too knowing, too sure. "You love him."

At last, Pip released Hotch from her gaze. The familiar draconian stare was aimed downwards to the woman who'd caused her so much trouble over the years.

"Not the way _you're_ thinking," she said contemptuously, with a little snort of laughter. Pip looked up and made fleeting eye contact with Rossi, before settling her eyes on Hotch once more and nodding. "But yes."

The woman nodded understandingly and peered up at Hotch. "Agent Hotchner, such loyalty is an honour."

"I know," muttered Hotch quietly. It sounded like he had to force the words out around a lump in his throat. He laid a hand on Pip's shoulder and Rossi could visibly see Pip swell with pride at the implication of that firm grip.

The woman sighed, turning her attention back to Pip. "Philippa, I have been reminded recently by a cheeky criminal psychologist of our mutual acquaintance, of the similarities between you and a certain agent of mine with a history of getting himself into trouble." She hitched her handbag up her shoulder, prevaricating. "I have also been reminded that perhaps I haven't always dealt justly with him, and I think perhaps I have not with you either. Allow me to level the score, as it were."

"We're even already," disputed Pip. "You catch me out, every time…"

"No. No, we're not, Philippa," the woman insisted. "But we will be." She nodded. "You will not be called to testify in front of the committee, given your…_former activities_ serving your country." She smirked mischievously. "What's the use of knowing all their secrets if I can't occasionally use one to my advantage?"

"_Your_ advantage?" sneered Pip. She shook her head. "You never change."

The woman ignored the jibe. "After speaking their part, the team will be called to hear the conclusions of the committee before they retire to decide their verdict. Philippa, I will ensure you are not part of that also. Agent Hotchner, might I have a word with Agent Prentiss before you all go back in? In the meantime I believe I have an urgent need to speak to Senator Cramer. Again." She grinned. "He doesn't like me very much."

"I know how he feels," growled Rossi, echoed by Pip. Hotch grunted his agreement.

* * *

It was insulting being questioned by someone who had no idea what it was like being in the field, the wilful lack of understanding of Morgan's actions grated on his nerves, but Rossi held his temper tightly in both hands. He knew that if Pip's friend had any chance of reversing the seemingly inevitable outcome, namely that they'd all be fired, then he had to stay calm. It was hard. The panel of people in front of him were rude, condescending and smug, a perfect combination to rile him up. It was a relief to be led away, his turn in the firing line complete.

Reid was after him, and at least there was little worry about there. Boy Wonder could probably convince the sky to turn green or seas to retreat if only given long enough run-up and someone standing nearby with a thesaurus to translate him for the rest of the mortals. As the door closed behind him Rossi crooked a quick smile as he heard Reid being addressed as "Agent", knowing it would irritate him. Hotch, and apparently Gideon before him, had always made a point of introducing the kid as "Doctor" to fend off unwanted assumptions about his capabilities based on his age. If nothing else Reid would give the Senator both barrels and be unfailingly polite while doing so.

As the whole team sat like school kids in detention in front of the teachers, they were treated to a scolding about what they'd done, how many rules they'd broken. Rossi wasn't listening. Cramer was clearly furious, and that relaxed him a little. The Senator wouldn't be so angry if he was getting his own way, which meant whatever Pip's friend had done had probably worked.

Pip was nowhere to be seen when the team minus Emily trooped out of the hearing, but Pip's tiny adversarial friend was sat calmly waiting for them on the freezing benches, casually like she was waiting for a train. She nodded to Rossi and cocked her head in a clear invitation to talk, away down the corridor from the others. He followed her with some trepidation.

"There'll be some additional scrutiny, but provided Agent Prentiss follows my advice, your team will all be reinstated, even Philippa," she said with a satisfied smile.

"I suppose I should thank you," replied Rossi grudgingly. It felt too easy, like she'd wiped the slate clean for them with a single word. He wondered if she would call on the BAU in the future, instead of Pip.

"Not necessary," she reassured him. She squinted up at him. "I'm just glad she's happy, although I doubt she would ever believe that if you told her so."

Rossi grunted in agreement. No, Pip would probably never believe that, and would probably always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the call to come to repay what had been done there that day. He would join her in that waiting, he was sure.

"You should build a veranda," she said, apropos to nothing.

Rossi coughed to cover his exclamation of confusion. "I'm sorry?"

"A veranda," she repeated. "Large enough to put a dining table that would fit your whole team."

"You're giving me _home-improvement_ advice?" asked Rossi incredulously.

He was treated to a sly smile. "A veranda would bring some of the outside in and make your living room feel less…_open to the horizons_, shall we say. I'm sure she'd appreciate that."

Rossi's mouth twisted in annoyance. "How do you know about that?" he growled. Pip's dislike of his wide open living room wasn't knowledge anyone but he had. The blueprints of his house were doing the rounds, it seemed. Although, as ideas went, a veranda wasn't a bad one. It would be quite nice in the summer to eat outside, he could upgrade his grill, add a summer house or similar…and if it had the added bonus of making Pip more amenable to moving in, well, he'd take it, regardless where the idea had come from.

She chuckled infuriatingly. "Oh, I've always kept close tabs on my little projects, Agent Rossi. That's how I know she's happy." She nodded to him and cocked her head, as if listening to something he couldn't hear. "Agent Prentiss should be more or less done, you should go and wait with the rest of your team." As she turned away, she added, "by the way, you're overwatering your lawn."

The door behind them banged open as Emily strode out, catching his attention for a moment and when Rossi looked back, the woman was gone. "Fucking disappearing act is getting old," he muttered to himself. "And I'm _not_ overwatering my lawn."


	2. Proof (S7E2)

_AN: Sorry for the long wait, the lockdown has not helped __inspiration. _

* * *

_Proof (S7E2) _

_**Home cooking is the true embodiment of love. It makes us show patience, kindness, humility, hope, and perseverance - Agus Ekanurdi**_

Rossi chewed uncertainly. "The pasta's overdone," he commented as he put down his fork, "and the pancetta isn't quite…" He stopped, unsure exactly how to describe it. It was chewier than expected, almost rubbery, and just didn't taste right.

"Perfectionist," teased Pip, happily ploughing through the last few bites of her portion of Garcia's attempt at his carbonara recipe. "Although it does remind me of one of the pasta flavours in the military MRE mixed packs. You know the one? Could be ham but with suspicious bits of something unidentifiable?"

Rossi almost gagged in remembered reflex and nodded. You didn't chew those bits, Lord knows what they were.

"I quite liked the beef ravioli one," mused Pip with a touch of nostalgia. "I have fond memories of spending what little free time I had at my grandfather's old hunting lodge with a box of them and a case of beer. I gave the lodge a few…upgrades before I moved in, of course."

"Of course," echoed Rossi with a smirk, privately wondering why he'd never heard of the hunting lodge before. She'd grown up in New York, there wasn't much scope for one there.

"How hungry did she think we were?" she asked, pushing her empty plate away. "There's enough to feed a Marine battalion in that tub."

"I think she's stress-cooking," he replied, eyeing the overfull container of pasta dubiously. Garcia had bounced up to him that morning to present him with it, even before he'd made it all the way out the elevator. There was no way they'd be able to get through even half of what she'd cooked, especially since he wasn't really a fan.

"Everyone is dealing with Emily's return differently," he added. "Morgan shoots, Hotch buries himself in files, Garcia cooks. In quantity, it seems. I think it's her way of showing she cares."

"And you?" asked Pip with a knowing glint in her eye, "what do you do?"

Rossi put down his fork to run his hand up her thigh. "You know _exactly_ what I do as stress relief," he said as his questing hand moved higher. "I've not been hearing any complaints," he added in response to her gentle snort of amusement.

Pip laughed. "Wasn't a complaint. More of an invitation," she added suggestively. "I spent the weekend without you, and you seem very stressed right now…"

Rossi abandoned thoughts of the washing up and let Pip lead him upstairs. She still didn't stay at his house all that often, and after a long week at work had disappeared for the weekend with no explanation. Well, that wasn't strictly true; she had, he just didn't believe it. "A meeting" she'd said, and that could cover a multitude of sins. Who she was meeting or where didn't seem to be on the list of things he should know. He wondered if that "meeting" had anything to do with the cabin she'd never mentioned before.

Regardless, he had every intention of making the most of their evening together. Dodgy pasta and cryptic references aside.

* * *

Garcia asked for honest feedback on her attempt at his recipe the following morning, so he gave it to her, along with the almost-full tub of leftovers. No wonder the pancetta hadn't tasted right, it had been tofu. Vegetarian carbonara, whatever next? Rossi could feel his genes rebelling at the very idea. It felt like he needed a good-sized steak to balance himself out. Tofu? Blech!

The fact that he could see Pip sniggering over his reaction as he escorted Garcia to the conference room didn't help any. Rossi was glad she couldn't see the horror his face when Morgan suggested a cooking lesson at his house, because she'd never let him hear the end of it. He did his best to avoid answering the question, dodging a proper reply by correcting "house" to "mansion" in the hope that it would divert their line of thought. There was a fair few of Pip's belongings at his house - he'd have to either come clean about that or clean up after her before he could have the team around. Neither prospect appealed. He _liked_ having Pip's stuff in his living room. He'd like more of it, and he'd like it to be able to stay there.

His stomach didn't settle as Garcia presented the case. Chemical enucleation and sexual violence against two pretty, blonde young women. Eyes again. Rossi hated the ones involving eyes, and the UnSub had burned them out with acid. Worse than simple removal, if there could be such a thing on any conscious, living creature. The pain would go on for longer, and it made both the torture and the pictures that much more sickening. He focussed on the undercurrents of petulance between Reid and JJ to keep his breakfast where it belonged, only chipping into the conversation when he had to. One of the many benefits of not being in charge any more was that he wasn't expected to lead such discussions.

Reid would need some time and possibly some talking to. Of all of them, he seemed to have taken the deception regarding Emily the hardest, possibly because he hadn't dealt with her supposed death all that well either. His answer had been to take a sabbatical and avoid all of them, rather than pull together as a family. Rossi knew he hadn't been much better when he'd thought Pip was dead, but at least he'd stuck with the team, let them carry him through. Reid had just retreated entirely.

It wasn't going to be easy getting through to him, he was behaving like a child; complete with a petulant pouty lip. For someone so ridiculously bright, he could be quite dense sometimes. JJ had tried to talk to him in Oklahoma, and it didn't go well. It hadn't been loud, Reid never shouted, but was loud enough that the rest of the team stood around the evidence board could hear every word.

Rossi exchanged a long glance with JJ as Reid flounced away. There were tears in her eyes and her face was flushed with emotion and there wasn't a damn thing he could do except offer silent support, reassurance that she'd done the right thing; even if Reid couldn't see that yet. He was too caught up in his own hurt to see that it had been the best thing, the _safest_ thing for Emily, and that was all that should matter. It was something he'd learned from Pip and it had been hard lesson, but one that was necessary. Her job in the Middle East had been helping to hunt a dangerous terrorist and in order to do that safely, she'd gone dark when the opportunity arose. It had probably saved her life, from what he'd pieced together of her account.

As soon as he got the chance, Rossi sounded Hotch out about Reid.

Hotch sighed. "He's angry and frustrated. I'm surprised everybody isn't."

Rossi wasn't. Morgan and Garcia were just glad to have their friend back, regardless of how or why. "Some of us had an inkling," noted Rossi with a tiny smirk. It was true, he'd been suspicious even before JJ's pointed glance that evening in the hospital.

"What?" he asked in response to Hotch's disbelieving look. "I'm good at what I do. So, are you going to get psychological counselling for the team or handle it internally?"

Hotch considered that. "No, I think if we all just got together, maybe a cooking lesson at the home of one of…"

Rossi cut him off. "Oh no, no, no, not you too."

Hotch didn't seem to notice. "It would boost morale," he insisted, hints of amusement at Rossi's reaction playing briefly around his face.

"Is this an order?" Rossi recognised that tone, and knew he was rapidly running out of options, other than to doing exactly what Hotch wanted.

Hotch smirked at him. "No, it's just a very tempered suggestion."

"Tempered my ass," scoffed Rossi, but he was smiling as he said it.

"An inkling? Is that what we're calling it?" asked Hotch as they drove back to the police station. "From what I've heard, you got the headlines before the signatures on the paperwork were even dry."

"Give me _some_ credit, I knew before JJ told me," objected Rossi. He glanced out the window so Hotch couldn't see how much his line of teasing hurt. "I'd have given anything not to have had that confirmation, because that would have meant…"

Rossi couldn't finish that. He wasn't thinking of the deceit surrounding Emily's supposed death, but the reason why JJ had told him it was a lie in the first place.

Hotch obviously knew where his thoughts had turned and took one hand off the wheel to squeeze his shoulder briefly. "I know it was hard on you," he offered by way of an apology.

"No worse than on the rest of them," Rossi disagreed as he shrugged out of Hotch's grasp, knowing full well that wasn't true. Hotch knew it too, from the look on his face, but didn't press the issue.

* * *

Pip phoned just before they gave the profile. "I think a cooking lesson is a marvellous idea," she announced.

Rossi groaned. "Did Hotch put you up to this or was it Garcia?" he grumbled.

"Well, that would be telling," replied Pip loftily. "I told you before, a lady doesn't kiss and tell."

"Since when have you been a lady?" teased Rossi. Pip had never been interested in hair or make up and would try to wriggle out of Garcia's "girly nights" with alarming regularity. As girls went, she was self-admittedly on the more masculine end of the spectrum, much happier in pants or jeans and only owned the one dress. Her shoes fitted into one neat corner of her closet, something Rossi had always marvelled at. Even _he_ had more than that. Perhaps Pip had always been that way, or perhaps her previous careers, both of them, had forged the tomboy into something harder, less typically feminine. Rossi didn't care, he loved her just the way she was, foul mouth included.

Pip laughed. "Well," she drawled, "you were the last to do a detailed physical examination of the relevant areas, what do you think?"

"I think I need some further study time, just to be sure of my findings," purred Rossi. "One should always recheck results to make sure."

"That can be arranged." Rossi fidgeted. That sounded like a promise, and delivered in a husky tone that set things stirring in his pants. She'd get him in trouble if she didn't ease up soon. "But I do think you ought to do the cooking lesson." Well, that _certainly_ stopped the X-rated thoughts in their tracks.

"Really?" asked Rossi wearily, although with both Pip and Hotch on at him to do it, he knew he would. It was just a matter of giving in gracefully.

"Really," she confirmed. Rossi could tell she was grinning at his discomfort with the idea. "Normally you all get on like a house on fire. You need to regain some of that sense of family. Doing something all together, with wine and laughing and no dead bodies, I think it might help. I can source an alternative to pancetta for Penny that you won't find as offensive as tofu."

"House on fire, huh?" Rossi snorted. "You mean like wanton destruction of property and lots of people running around screaming?" Although her reasoning had merit. Forcing Reid to interact in close quarters with JJ without the need for a professional edge to conversation would push him into at least expressing himself properly, rather than lashing out. It was probably worth a try.

"I was thinking more along the lines of an amazingly strong team saving people's lives every day, but whatever floats your boat," retorted Pip dismissively. "I'll tell Penny to send out an email invite to everyone."

"Make it for the evening after we get back," interjected Rossi quickly. "I'm going to need your company first."

"You ok?" Pip went from flirty and bossy to concerned in a nanosecond, and Rossi felt his heart swell with love for her.

"Eyes." He didn't elaborate, but he didn't need to.

"Night after you get back," said Pip understandingly. "Gives me time to make sure I didn't leave my bra in your living room or something. That could raise some awkward questions. I'll swing past this evening and make sure. Just don't give them the arty-farty "these are my paints" speech. I bet you ten bucks someone will point out that makes your hands the brushes. Probably Penny, she's not nearly as scared of you as she used to be before she knew we were close."

Pip was gone before Rossi could respond, leaving him gazing fondly into middle distance. Even in the midst of case involving enucleation, she could make him smile. He was the luckiest man in the whole fucking world.

Hotch raised an eyebrow when Garcia's email about the cooking lesson came through less than five minutes later. "That was quick," he muttered.

Rossi swung reproachful eyes his way. "It was you, wasn't it?"

Hotch looked far too smugly innocent. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sneaky pain in my ass, you know I can't deny her a single thing," growled Rossi accusingly. "If you told her the sky was purple, she'd agree just because it was you who said so. Between the two of you, I don't stand a chance." He pulled a woeful expression. "That could be considered bullying, you know."

Hotch chuckled. "Except I know for a fact that you enjoy it," he whispered as the crowd gathered to hear the profile. "What kind of profiler would I be if I didn't use that to my advantage?"

* * *

Rossi had to his breath as they interrogated Cy. The man could blow a hole in a silver plate and getting close to him was an exercise in willpower not to vomit. The combination of chemical stench and his disgusting breath only added to the noxious B.O., mixing together to make a smell almost strong enough to see. Rossi felt like he could still taste it at the back of his throat as they flew home.

He pretended to be asleep as Emily approached Reid about the cooking evening planned for the following night, interested in how Reid would react to her. His anger had been directed JJ out of embarrassment, that he'd wept his heart out to someone who had lied to him. Privately, Rossi thought JJ's accusation that Reid was upset because he hadn't detected the deception also had some merit.

Rossi caught Hotch's huff of frustration as Reid ducked the question and opened one eye a little to peer at him. Hotch returned his look with a raised eyebrow and shook his head. Rossi nodded minutely. Reid would either come or he wouldn't. Pushing him would only make it less likely he'd show up.

Reid did show, but late enough that they'd all assumed he wasn't going to.

"This is why I cook alone," commented Rossi as he started his speech again, ignoring Hotch's disbelieving grin. He shrugged lightly in reply. He didn't cook alone very often any more. In his kitchen, Pip would perch herself on the counter by the sink with a glass of wine and offer sarcastic commentary on everything from his seasoning habits to his choice of pots and pans. In hers, she'd sit at the breakfast counter to watch, still with a glass of wine and a dose of her biting wit.

The evening passed with much laughter and joking, aided by a selection of wines from his collection. JJ was the first to leave, citing a desire to get home to Will before she had too much to drink. Reid went with her, proving to all of them that the evening had been a resounding success. Morgan and Garcia left shortly after, leaving Rossi with Hotch and Emily.

Whatever Pip had said to Hotch about Emily, it seemed to have worked. While they were still a little tentative around each other, the flat-out refusal to meet each other's eyes had gone. Emily excused herself less than half an hour later and Rossi and Hotch retired to his living room to crack open the scotch.

"Thought you might want this back," said Hotch, holding out a small picture frame.

Rossi took it, a confused frown furrowing his brow until he turned it over. He'd framed Pip's apple drawing after it had started getting dog-eared in his wallet. He glanced at Hotch, wondering how he'd come across it.

"It was in the kitchen, I figured one of you had swept the place for any of her things, but this got passed right by," Hotch explained. "We've all seen the pendant she wears; the reference is pretty clear. As soon as I saw it, I grabbed it before someone else noticed. I'm afraid it's rather warm, I had to sit on it," he added with a smile.

"It was her way of telling me she was safe, that she'd arrived in-theatre and was thinking of me," said Rossi softly, caressing the frame gently. "Once I framed it, I put it in the kitchen, so I didn't feel like I was cooking by myself. I'd forgotten it was there."

Hotch made a small noise of understanding, then smirked. "So, you don't cook alone."

Rossi laughed. "Not any more. Although I usually get more sarcasm and swearing than I did tonight."

"It seems to have done the job though," replied Hotch with a smile. "I owe Morgan for the idea, I wasn't sure how to deal with Reid. I tried to get him to deflect his anger toward me, but it didn't work."

"He's stubborn."

"Takes one to know one," retorted Hotch with a broad smile. The booze had loosened him up a little, Rossi could see Hotch had needed a chance to unwind as much as any of them. He had smiled more that evening than in the past two weeks combined.

"Ah well, I've had a good education in dealing with stubborn people," replied Rossi, eyes straying back to the small frame on the side table next to him. "Reid is child's play in comparison." He raised his gaze back to Hotch. "Speaking of stubborn, dare I ask about you, specifically you and Emily?"

Hotch knocked back a hearty swallow his drink. "There's nothing to tell. Harker had some insights I've taken to heart, and once I put the mental brakes on, I could see what she saw. It's too soon, for either of us, and I'm not going to approach the subject unless she makes it clear she's ready to talk about it. I've taken some of my own advice too. _Enjoy the friendship while it while it lasts_ worked well enough for you, I figured I'd see where that takes me."

"And if Em is never ready?" asked Rossi softly. That had been his main stumbling block with Pip, the risk of rejection too great to ignore, making the easiest course of action to say nothing at all.

"Then she's never ready," said Hotch. "I'm not going to jeopardise the team or our careers to chase something that may never happen." He shrugged. "She knows, and I've taken a step back. She knows she can still call me in the middle of the night if she needs someone to talk to. How often do men like us have that kind of friendship with anyone, let alone more than one?"

Rossi raised his tumbler in agreement and glanced once more at the biro-drawn apple. Not often, and the BAU family meant they both had a whole group of people they could call on. Yet, Rossi also was sure both of them knew who they'd call first, and despite their friendship, it wouldn't be each other. He could say with absolute surety that his first call in a crisis would always be Pip, and that had been the case for many years.

A crisis a bit like the previous evening, when it had taken all of Rossi's vaunted self-discipline not to just drag Pip out of the door by her belt as soon as the team got back. He'd wanted to erase the overpowering odour of Cy Bradstone by smothering himself in her, to roll himself over and over her like an affectionate puppy to cover himself in her delicious scent. She'd picked up a new brand of moisturiser to use on her many scars, and the smell of it drove him crazy. In the pot it smelled as all beauty products did – falsely floral and slightly sterile. Once on her skin it was heavenly, merging with the natural fragrance of her to make it even more intoxicating than usual.

Pip had taken one look at his face and delegated the paperwork to Phillips. She knew what he needed. She knew anything involving eyes made him – David Rossi, former Marine and profiler extraordinaire – _squeamish_. She'd ordered him into the passenger seat of the truck and hightailed it out of the Bureau so fast they'd nearly clipped the rising barrier on the parking lot because it didn't rise quickly enough.

He hadn't waited for total privacy, hadn't been able to. Rossi had pulled her to him and buried his nose into the crook of her neck as soon as the communal door to her place was shut behind them. He stayed like that for several minutes before moving.

"Sorry," he murmured as he pulled back. "I just…"

Pip gave him a wonky smile that looked a little tired. "I know. I just don't like seeing you like that." She took his hand in hers. "Come on." She tugged him gently and they walked up to her apartment together, awkwardly still holding hands on the narrow stairway.

"Have a shower, wash it off," she suggested once her front door was safely closed between them and the world.

"I had a shower before I left Oklahoma," objected Rossi. He had. Three in fact, none of which had done as good a job of removing Cy from his nostrils as that embrace in the front hallway downstairs.

Pip had rolled her eyes. "It isn't physical and you know it. Get in the fucking shower. I'm going to order Chinese for dinner and then join you."

That had made obedience much easier, knowing she was going to get naked and soapy with him. If nothing else, because she'd be putting on some more of that glorious moisturiser afterwards…

Rossi was roused from his musings by Hotch's voice. He raised his eyes, only to realise that Hotch had probably called his name more than once, from the look on his face. "What?"

"I was commenting on the origins of that goofy grin, but on reflection, I don't think I want to know," said Hotch, with more than a touch of relief accompanying the knowing smirk. "You spaced out for a while."

"I'm just tired," replied Rossi honestly. He hadn't slept much the previous night, and not for the reason Hotch was thinking, either. Well…not _just_ the reason Hotch was thinking…

Rossi's own smirk brought an embarrassed flush to Hotch's face. "No, I _definitely_ don't want to know," he chuckled.

"Prude. How is it you've managed to reproduce? I've _got_ to find you a date."

They laughed together. "To the BAU family, back together again," said Rossi, raising the remains of his scotch in toast.

"Long may it last," agreed Hotch.


	3. Interlude - Visitors in the Night

_Interlude - __Visitors in the Night_

_**It takes guts and humility to admit mistakes. Admitting we're wrong is courage, not weakness - Roy T. Bennett**_

Rossi had barely finished cleaning up the kitchen when his cell rang. He had a pretty good idea who it was, Pip had been instrumental in setting up the so-called "cooking lesson" and no doubt wanted an update on its effectiveness.

"It was a grand success," he boasted, after a quick confirmatory glance at the caller display. "Reid and JJ…"

"That's great, but I really need your help," interrupted Pip. She sounded frustrated and annoyed, and supremely uninterested in the outcome of his evening teaching the team how to cook his signature dish. He could hear the rush of traffic in the background and the blare of a horn from a fellow road user; both familiar sounds while Pip was behind the wheel. She didn't tend to suffer from road rage, but Rossi suspected she certainly caused it in other people. Probably quite frequently.

"Where'd you learn to drive, fuckwad?" Pip yelled. "Sorry Dave, I'm just a bit…" she sighed. "Can I come over? Bit of an emergency."

"Of course. Are you alright?" he asked, although if she was calling him and driving at the same time, Rossi could assume it wasn't her that was in trouble. For once.

"I've been better," she huffed. "I was curled up with a good book contemplating an early night until about an hour ago and now I don't suppose I'm going to get any sleep at all."

Somehow, that didn't sound like an invitation for a _pleasurable_ sleepless night, a continuation of what they'd enjoyed the previous evening.

"I'm about fifteen minutes out. Can you put the coffee on?" she asked plaintively. "I'm going to need it."

Rossi agreed as Pip added, "I'm not the only one," under her breath, as if Rossi wasn't meant to hear. She hung up before he could ask her what was going on.

Rossi heard Pip's truck screech to a halt in his driveway at the same time as the coffee machine finished its cycle, and opened the front door just as she made it to the top of the steps.

To say the sight that greeted him was a shock was probably the understatement of a lifetime. Pip stood there, her familiar smile at seeing him more than a little strained. Leaning so much over her that she was mostly draped across Pip's shoulders, was Erin Strauss. From the way Strauss was moving it was clear that left to her own devices, she'd have fallen flat on her face and stayed there. Rossi could smell the booze from several feet away.

"Long story," sighed Pip, in response to his raised eyebrow. "Can you help me park her near a loo?"

Rossi helped Pip deposit Strauss in the downstairs bathroom, then pulled her into the hallway to talk. "What the fuck is going on?"

"An intervention. Sort of." Pip sighed. "Possibly a rescue. She was spotted out and about, someone called someone else, who called someone else, who called me. I found what you see. I couldn't leave her there."

"Why not?" Rossi wasn't feeling particularly charitable toward Strauss. He never had, and that hadn't really changed even after Pip had thawed the Cold War with her. To have her drunkenly slumped on his bathroom floor in the middle of the night wasn't even _close_ to making the list of his top thousand scenarios for their next uneasy exchange.

Pip folded her arms. "Because she's making an effort. It isn't easy to kick a habit, and being left with no friends at all is just another easy excuse to self-medicate. I need you with me on this."

Rossi gestured irritably in the direction of the bathroom door. "Doesn't look much of an effort to me." Pip glared at him and Rossi sighed. "Fine," he agreed begrudgingly. "What do you need me do?"

Pip closed her eyes and massaged her temples, a familiar tell of tiredness. "I think you've probably already done it," she said with a gusty sigh. "I didn't know where else to take her."

"You don't need help with…" He stopped to get control of his tongue; he'd nearly said _that, _and Pip probably would have slapped him, "…her?"

She raised an eyebrow as if she knew why he'd hesitated momentarily. "Actually, I think it's best if she doesn't realise whose house this is yet. It's not like you two get on…"

"You can say that again," muttered Rossi under his breath.

"…and I can deal with the aftermath by myself, I've done it so many times it's practically muscle memory," said Pip wearily. "What I needed was somewhere to bring her. You've done that. Now what I need is your absence." She cocked her head at the familiar sound of throwing up and graced Rossi with a bright smile that didn't reach her eyes. "And a mop."

He prepped a bucket of hot soapy water and left it and the mop outside the bathroom door. Rossi lingered, trying to rein in his curiosity as the muted sounds of conversation reached his ears. Pip cleared her throat pointedly and Rossi smiled to himself. He couldn't sneak up on her, even in his own house. It was like she had radar, she always knew exactly where he was. He turned away and made his way to bed.

* * *

Pip joined him many hours later, so much later that it was starting to get early. Rossi rolled over and flipped back the covers for her. Pip flopped tiredly into bed, dragging the warm bedding back over them both.

"You OK?" Rossi murmured as she sought his embrace a little desperately. Pip didn't often seek his comfort or reassurance like that, so for her to do so meant she was unsettled.

She lifted her head from his chest to look at him. "Thank you, by the way. I don't think I said that before. Or please. Sorry, I tend to get a bit bossy when…"

Rossi shut her up with a kiss. "It's fine," he whispered as they parted. "You've always been bossy, _bella_. And I know what you're like under pressure." He turned his body so that they lay face-to-face with his hand splayed on her back, pulling her closer. Her hair was damp from a recent shower and though she'd plaited it before coming to bed, it had been a rush job. Rossi gently tucked away two wayward strands that had been missed, so they weren't in her face. "Everything ok?" he asked, her evasion waking up a few more brain cells.

"I guess. She's in the smaller guest room, nearest the bathroom. Traditional 5-part operation. I sobered her up, cleaned her up, bandaged her up, dosed her up and tucked her up." Pip gave a sad little shrug, a movement Rossi only caught because he had his arm around her. "Never thought I'd be using those skills again."

The one that had made sure Pip even had those skills in the first place was McGill. Still a thorny issue between them, but even half asleep Rossi knew better than to mention it. "I suspected she was drinking, I didn't realise it had got this bad," he admitted. "But I asked about _you_," he insisted, his free hand stroking her shoulder.

"We're so similar," she whispered.

It took a moment – he had just woken up after all, but it was quickly apparent she didn't mean the two of them, but herself and Strauss.

"You two are _nothing_ alike," he growled. Rossi tightened his hold to emphasise his point.

"Yes, we are," Pip disagreed. "She has no friends, Dave. Not one. It's so sad, she's pushed everyone away. Political allies, colleagues, she's got plenty of those. But no real friends. Exactly like me when I joined the BAU."

When she was still relying on opiates to get her through each day. Rossi hesitated, unwilling to concede that Pip had similarities with _Strauss_, of all people.

"She needs friends," continued Pip. "It's fallen to me, to both of us, to be there for her, because nobody else will."

"_Us?_" Rossi froze for a moment in shock. "Both of…you want me to be…to be _friends_ with…with _Strauss?_" It was such a distasteful concept that Rossi thought he could taste the shit in his mouth just from saying it. Even after seeing the state she'd been in and what Pip had said.

"Just…just try? Give it time," Pip pleaded. "I can't do it all alone. Please? I agree she's a bitch, but so was I when I was a junkie. I think there might be a decent person under all the outer layers."

"Maybe." It would require extensive excavation to find them. Rossi yawned into her shoulder. "Let me sleep on it." He glanced at her when she didn't reply, only to find that she'd got a head start. Rossi frowned. Even in sleep, Pip still looked tired.

* * *

Rossi woke alone. He'd preempted the alarm by all of about ninety seconds, so decided that he may as well get up. If Pip had left him to sleep, she was undoubtedly already awake and had put coffee on. Coffee – he needed coffee before he could deal with any of the fallout from the previous night.

"What's _he_ doing here?" Strauss' shrill voice first thing in the morning wasn't his idea of a good way to start the day.

"I live here," he said absently, deeply focused on finding caffeine. He glanced up, catching the tense atmosphere between Strauss, perched at the counter on a stool, and Pip, leaning casually next to the sink. He rolled his eyes. "Don't mind me." He retrieved a cup of much-needed coffee and turned to make a hasty retreat.

"Why did you bring me here?" Strauss asked Pip. "More humiliation?" she accused.

"Don't be thick," snapped Pip. "If it was about humiliation, I would have left you where I found you."

Rossi lurked in the doorway, too wary to interrupt but too intrigued to leave.

"My place is too busy with people," continued Pip, "I wasn't going to leave you alone, so I brought you here." She shrugged. "It's safe, it's quiet, and I knew Dave wouldn't mind. I knew what you needed."

"You have no idea…" started Strauss stridently.

"How do you think I knew you had a problem?" interrupted Pip smoothly. "Why else would I come with you to those meetings? Do you really believe that when I stood up, when I shared, that I _lied?_" Pip stared at Strauss as if willing her to understand. "I'm careful with the truth, but I would hope you know me better than _that_. Everything I said was true, but I never actually said my problem was alcohol. The type of bottle I used was different, but the result was the same," she said bitterly. "Alcohol, pills, does it really make much of a difference?"

"I don't need your help," spat Strauss. "You've seriously over-stepped the boundaries…"

"For fuck's sake, **wake up!**" yelled Pip, striding across the kitchen to slam her hands down on the counter in front of Strauss. "Have you _any_ idea how close it was last night? You weren't sneaking a drink in at work during lunch or after hours in your office, you weren't partying at home alone. You were _out_, and out in the kind of place the wrong people could have seen you, as you stumbled into tables and scolded a potted plant for getting in your way! I got a phone call, Erin!" cried Pip, waving her hands. "You don't have a sponsor, so it fell to me as the next best thing to stop you embarrassing yourself in front of the Director's wife and her yoga buddies. I came to find you. I held your hair while you threw up, I picked you up when you tripped over your own feet and fell down in the gutter. I brought you back here, washed you off and dressed your grazes, then I poured coffee down your throat until some semblance of sense returned. The reason your clothes are clean is because I washed them for you. You're not currently chucking your guts up because I made sure you ate and had plenty of water before I put you to bed. You need _all the help I can give_." Pip was breathing hard and red-faced by the time she'd finished.

Pale-faced, although that could be the hangover, Strauss glanced briefly in Rossi's direction. She looked haughty, indignant. Not contrite, or even accepting. As pointed as Pip's emotional outburst had been, it didn't look like the message had sunk in.

"Will you at least keep coming to the meetings?" asked Pip quietly. She looked resigned, as if she knew her efforts were being wasted. Rossi certainly thought so. Strauss simply didn't want help.

"Am I your prisoner here?" Strauss dodged the question and hitched her jacket over one arm, looking every inch her professional self.

Pip waved a tired hand and slumped against the counter as Strauss swept out, head held high.

"I shouldn't have shouted at her," she whispered, flinching a little as the front door slammed shut. "That's not the way to go about it, there's a reason it's always two people doing an intervention." She closed her eyes with a sigh and hung her head. "I shouldn't have lost my temper."

With no experience with that kind of thing, Rossi had to take her word for it. Seemed to him like Strauss could do with a good shouting-at, but if Pip said that wasn't the right way, then it wasn't.

"I still don't know why you were the one to save her from herself last night," he said from the doorway.

"I promised Agent Hotchner I'd throw her a lifeline."

Rossi crossed the kitchen to rub her shoulders, not sure what to say. It was obvious Strauss hadn't accepted that she had a problem, so anything Pip did wouldn't be received in the manner it was meant.

Pip leaned into him. "I'm so tired," she murmured, snuffling his shirt. "Mmm, you smell nice."

Rossi chuckled a little and held her closer. "Why don't you take the day off? I'm sure Hotch won't mind if you tell him why."

He had been mostly joking, Pip took her job incredibly seriously and objected to anything or anyone that tried to keep her from her desk. She saw herself as the first line of defence for the BAU, not from UnSubs, but from the politics, the machinations of the Bureau and the wider justice system. Taking a sick day when she wasn't on her death bed just wasn't in her character.

Pip thought long and hard about it, which concerned Rossi no end. He'd expected an immediate strident denial and for her to straighten out of his grasp, square her shoulders and say something insulting about him, or his idea. Or more likely, both. That she didn't immediately do so told him she was more exhausted than he had initially appreciated.

"Ok." Pip nodded tiredly. "I'll call him." She raised her eyes to his, and Rossi could properly see for the first time just how wiped out she really was. They'd stayed up late as he purged himself of Cy Bradstone, and too lost in his own need, he hadn't realised she was already running on fumes and sheer willpower. Helping Strauss had been cutting into her sleep for more than just one night, and Rossi thought he knew why.

Pip had promised Hotch, which meant she'd taken it up as a sacred charge, a mission to be completed at all costs. And she'd run herself into the ground trying. Not quite what Hotch had intended, he was sure.

"Do you mind if I stay here?" asked Pip. "It's quieter than mine."

Rossi hugged her again. "Stupid woman. Of course I don't mind." He sneaked a quick kiss. "I quite like the idea of you being here waiting when I get home."

Pip smiled softly. "Me too."

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him briefly. "I'm going back to bed." She threw him a little smirk. "Have a nice day, dear."

Rossi grinned. "Yes, dear."

He could hear her still chuckling as she climbed the stairs.

* * *

Hotch pulled him into his office before Rossi had even taken his coat off. "Harker called in sick. She told me Strauss knew about the two of you. Do I need to be concerned about that?"

Rossi blinked. That wasn't the question he'd expected. Pip hadn't told Hotch everything, or indeed, really _anything_ if that was his first question. "No." He glanced away. "Actually, she knew already," he admitted.

"Her doing or yours?"

"Pip's actually," said Rossi with a smile. "She stared Strauss down in my office the night she was called to Europe. I think maybe that's when they called a truce."

"Which seems to be on hold," said Hotch with a pointed look. "I've told Harker to watch her step and stay away from Strauss for a while. Whatever was said, it's reignited the conflict between them. You should keep your head down too."

Why did suddenly it feel like everything was poised, teetering on a knife edge somehow? That one more thing would upset the delicate balance of the life he had built, was _still_ building?

When was he ever going to get a fucking _break?_


	4. Dorado Falls (S7E3)

_Dorado Falls (S7E3) _

_**Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die – Herbert Hoover**_

He'd tripped over the photo album that morning, like an omen or something. Somehow, the truths held in those pictures had haunted him all day, even before Dolan. With the working day over, he'd relented, given in to the self-punishment those pictures represented. He'd survived, but so many others hadn't.

Rossi sipped his scotch as he trawled through the photographs. He'd put some in an album many years previously, all the better to stumble upon, but the rest had remained loose in an old shoe box that he usually kept buried at the back of the closet. Pictures of his old unit, of the tangled and unfriendly jungle they'd found themselves in. Good Lord, didn't they all look so young? Too young to have been doing what they were doing, certainly. Most of them had barely been more than teenagers, himself included. Some of them, too many in fact, hadn't aged much beyond the moment in time captured by the camera. War might be necessary evil sometimes, but that war had simply been evil.

"How many have you had?" asked Pip, casually draping herself over his armchair. He hadn't even heard her come in.

"I'm not Strauss, I don't need you to police my drinking habits!" he snapped angrily. It was unfair, but he couldn't stop it. "I'm perfectly able to control myself!" It was true, he was only on his second, but had planned to keep going until either he could relax or the bottle was empty, whichever came first.

"I know," she replied, swiping the glass from his hand to steal a sip before handing it back. "I just want to know how bad it is." She cast a meaningful glance at the level in the bottle on the table next to him.

Rossi sighed. The anger faded as rapidly as it had arrived, allowing the melancholy to ooze back into the space it had briefly filled. "Bad enough."

"You want to swap war stories?"

"No." He was in no mood to hear about more instances when she'd been in danger. It had been bad enough staring down the barrel of Luke Dolan's gun in the bullpen without knowing she was in the room too. It wasn't until after Dolan had been taken away that as soon as he'd appeared, she and Phillips had hustled Griffin and Duffy into the filing room and barricaded themselves safely inside.

Pip gestured to the photographs. "You want to tell me some of yours?"

He shook his head. For all that she'd been in the military and had undoubtedly seen and done some terrible things as part of her CIA career, he didn't want to share his time in the forests of Vietnam with her. He'd killed children too, although not innocents like Dolan – the little bastards had been doing their best to stab him at the time, but still. It was a particular stain on his soul that he didn't want exposed to the open air.

"Want to come to bed?"

Rossi nodded. The reassurance of her familiar body was probably exactly what he needed. He abandoned his scotch and the photos of another lifetime and silently followed her upstairs, to his bedroom than still held the scent of yesterday's sex.

* * *

He wanted to. He really did. He wanted to lose himself in sensation, to listen only to the enticing noises she made as he played her body like a concert pianist. He wanted to, but he couldn't. Somehow, the guilt and agony in Dolan's eyes kept intruding, the ugly knowledge of what he'd done overriding all other expression.

Rossi rolled away from Pip with a huff of self-disgust. He knew she'd see his lack of physical reaction to her efforts as a rejection, proof of her long-held fear that he'd eventually tire of her.

"Sorry," he said shortly, yanking on his pyjama bottoms and making his way to the bedroom door as Pip moved about behind him. She was no doubt hunting for something to wipe her eyes, but it sounded like wet leaves rustling together.

He'd barely started to open the door when it slammed shut, jerked out of his hand by the thrown knife juddering in the top corner of the woodwork. Rossi spun to face her.

Pip was standing on the bed, as naked as the day she was born, casually tossing the other knife in the air. "Don't you fucking _dare_ run away from me, or the next one won't just damage the _door_," she hissed.

Rossi swallowed uncertainly. It suddenly felt darker, harder to see. He'd expected upset, he expected tears. In hindsight, leaving without an explanation or some form of reassurance hadn't been a very good idea, but outright fury hadn't occurred to him. Perez's words about what she was capable of inconveniently made themselves known in the forefront of his mind. He had height and weight over her, but she was faster, more limber, and infinitely more dangerous in close quarters with a knife in her hand. She'd won trophies in the Philippines, beating men who'd trained with knives their entire lives. In a fight, he wouldn't like to bet on the outcome because he'd have to bet against himself. He licked his lips, trying to ease the sudden dryness of his mouth.

"Pip…" he started, genuinely quite frightened.

"Would you let me walk away when I was so obviously disturbed by something?" she interrupted.

Rossi shook his head, eyes flickering between hers and the knife still in her hand. At least she'd stopped bouncing it up and down like she was seriously thinking about throwing it at him. If he could just get it away from her, maybe he stood a better chance…

To his alarm, Pip hopped off the bed and sauntered towards him. She stopped just out of grabbing range. "So why should it be any different for you?" she asked softly. Her gaze moved behind him to the door, which broke the spell a little and the room seemed to lighten. "Sorry about that. You ignored me when I called your name. Three times."

"And scaring me shitless was your next best idea?" retorted Rossi sharply, with a wary glance down to the blade she still held. "I thought you were going to…" He stopped. Had he? Had he really? The look on her face said she would never do anything of the kind, and he started to realise his fear had been memory, not reality. He _knew_ she couldn't hurt him; he'd already had that discussion with his subconscious, and it hadn't needed to be a lengthy one. If she was going to, it would have been the first night she got home from the Middle East, in an unconscious adrenaline-fuelled instinctive reaction. She hadn't been able to do it then, so she certainly couldn't do it when wide awake and completely in her right mind. Somehow, he'd forgotten that.

"I didn't hear you," he said instead, trying to side-step his thoughts of her attempting, _and probably succeeding _his paranoid traitorous mind whispered, that part of his mind that was still in the undergrowth of Vietnam, to kill him. He genuinely hadn't heard her. That told him something too, that he'd been too lost in his spiralling thoughts of dark forests and kids with knives and fierce looks of determination to notice her speaking.

Pip snorted. "Clearly. Are you going to do what you should have done earlier?"

"Drink myself into insensibility?"

"_Talk to me_," said Pip with a roll of her eyes. "Although I think we could both do with a medicinal shot or three."

He was thinking clearly, or _clearer_ at least, by then and Rossi wondered if more whisky was really such a good move. "Coffee with a shot, otherwise I'm liable to get carried away," he offered. He knew his limits, even if it might not always look like it, and too much alcohol in his current mood would probably only be a recipe for disaster.

Pip nodded and gestured to the knife embedded in the door. "Can you retrieve that? It's too high for me to reach."

"I ought to make you get a chair and get it yourself after throwing it at me," grumbled Rossi, as he reached up and worked the blade clear of the wood. The effort required said something of the force with which it had been delivered.

Pip just laughed at him. "I told you before, if I was aiming at you, I wouldn't miss."

Rossi just grunted, having finally freed the knife. "Are you going to put some clothes on or just parade around in your birthday suit?" he asked, handing it back to her.

"Depends which you'd prefer," she replied teasingly as she tucked the Twins back in the bedside drawer on her side.

Rossi ran a hand over his face. "Pip, I don't…I can't…I mean…" Rossi stopped. He had no idea what he meant actually; other than his absolute surety that there was no way he'd be in the mood for sex that night, and completely lacked the wherewithal to articulate that without hurting her feelings.

"I was kidding," Pip reassured him. "That fact you couldn't tell worries me more than anything else this evening." She fished the shirt he'd worn to work that day from the laundry and pressed it to her nose, inhaling deeply. "Mmm, smells of you," she sighed happily, slipping it on and doing up enough buttons to make it more or less decent. She flapped an imperious hand towards the door. "Go on, get moving."

* * *

They sat in the kitchen, medicated coffee in front of them and the old photos spread across the worktop. The album rested under Rossi's elbow. Those pictures were of better time in the Marines, not what was currently twisting in his mind, the darkness lingering like a spectre in his thoughts.

"You look so young," commented Pip, pulling one of the earliest images a little nearer. "Don't take that as a remark about your age," she added, glancing up at him.

Rossi managed a small smile. "I didn't."

"Had to make sure, you might have done earlier. You've been misunderstanding me all evening."

"It isn't you," he reassured her. Unnecessarily, from the look on her face, and Rossi gestured vaguely in the direction of the picture she held. "We _were_ young. Too young, I think."

"I'm not sure there _is_ a right age for that kind of thing."

Rossi tipped his head in acknowledgement. No, there probably wasn't an age when it was appropriate to see some of things he'd seen, or do some of things he'd been ordered to do.

"Who's that?" asked Pip, pointing to a dark-skinned man who appeared in several pictures.

"Harrison Scott. My sergeant in that mess. He saved my life." Rossi took a swallow of his coffee, enjoying the warmth, both of the drink and the generous measure Pip had poured in. "I wasn't the most observant kid of the bunch and I stepped on a landmine. Instead of pulling back and leaving me to my fate he pushed me off it, holding me to the ground as it went off. I'd be dead if it wasn't for him, all I got was a hefty concussion and that shrapnel wound on my arm." Pip nodded, she'd seen it many times. Rossi snorted humourlessly. "And a ticket out of that hellhole. By the time I was fit for duty, it was time to rotate home."

"That was your Purple Heart?" She'd seen the medal, everyone had, it hung in his office. He hadn't told her what it had been for.

Rossi nodded. "Yeah. Scott survived the war, I think he's in California now."

"And these guys?" Pip pointed to a group shot, all of them together, standing around in camp with their shirts off. "Didn't you all look mighty fine, all bare-chested and sweaty? You still look good shirtless, just thought I'd mention that," she added with an exaggerated leer at his topless body perched next to her at the counter.

Rossi gave her an indulgent smile that faded quickly, his eyes still fixed on the picture. "James got captured, they tortured him for three nights, and he was still alive when we found him. Harrison gave him mercy when he begged to die. The official records listed his death as in the line of duty, but none of us disputed it. Hernandez got killed not long after I got airlifted, I think. Like I said, I had concussion, so everything around that time is a little fuzzy. I don't know what happened to Mattheson. The others…I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember all their names. We had new blood so often, replacing the ones we lost…" He shrugged. "It was a long time ago."

"Not long enough to bury some part of it," said Pip knowingly. "What was it? Or rather, who?"

Sometimes he hated that she knew him so well. Rossi set his jaw. "Those two," he said, pointing to the men in question. Men…they'd been boys, all of them, so youthfully arrogant and cock-sure of their own invincibility. "Rogers and Freeman, we went through basic together." He sighed. "It was war, both sides did terrible things."

"I know how war works, Dave," retorted Pip. "I've been in several."

"Not like that one," he disputed. "We became what we fought. They'd do something, we'd do something worse in response, each side trying to one-up the other with despicable acts of unnecessary cruelty. Or at least that's how it felt. We'd heard rumours of child soldiers, but in that place, you didn't believe it until you'd seen it, and sometimes not even then. Both sides laid traps of seeming to confuse the enemy, so not everything was actually what it looked like."

He sighed heavily again, pausing for another mouthful of his coffee. Why was it so hard to talk about, even after so long? Rossi took another deep breath, bracing himself.

"Our camp was raided, in the middle of the night. It'd happened before, it wasn't a new tactic, usually they just ruined our food, stole our medical supplies, pissed in our water, that kind of thing." He shook his head. "Doesn't sound like much, but we had no idea how to eat off the land, fresh water was a valuable commodity in an environment where you sweat your body weight in water every two days, and without medicine we were at the mercy of the wildlife. Pretty much everything that slithered, crawled or flew was trying to kill you and they were _everywhere. _On every leaf, in every log, under every stone. All the time we were just trying to exist, we were easy targets, blundering around in a tropical rainforest that the enemy knew and we didn't."

"Fuck that," muttered Pip. "Give me a desert any day."

Rossi nodded. "Not the easiest place to survive, even under the best of circumstances. That raid, that night, it was different. A horde of children on silent feet, creeping though our camp. About twenty or so. They'd killed the guy standing watch, I'm afraid I don't remember his name. He was new, I don't think he's even in any of the photos."

He stirred the pictures with a tired hand. "No, he's not. Poor bastard, he never saw it coming. Rogers managed to scream before they slit his throat and I woke up to find one of them hovering over me with a knife in her hand, eyes glittering with malice. There was no compassion on her face, just this focussed look of concentration, like she wanted to make sure she got it right." Rossi shuddered. "That look scared me far more than any serial killer I've faced since."

"The Viet Cong used girls? How did I miss _that_ in high school history?" wondered Pip absently.

"Girls and boys," agreed Rossi. "They were remarkably equal opportunities in that regard. Children were quieter than the adults, although they were stealthy enough. I suspect they actually favoured the girls for that kind of thing because they were smaller, and more likely to make an American hesitate. That hesitation was deadly - Freeman died because of it. A girl hamstrung him and slashed his throat almost to the bone when he collapsed."

"What happened to the one standing over you?"

"I killed her," said Rossi simply. "I slept with my gun in my hand in those days, and I shot her. And the one that came after when she slumped over me and stopped me getting up. And the next, and the next. Those of us left kept firing until they were all gone, either dead or fled back into the trees. I counted, when it got light," he added, working hard to keep the tremor from his voice. "There were twelve…twelve bodies. I k-killed four children, all of them probably no older than second grade." He'd kept his voice more or less steady as the harrowing tale unfolded but nothing could stop the tears building.

"I had to as well," offered Pip quietly.

That stopped the impending tears immediately, mostly out of shock. "You did?" he breathed. He'd never considered sharing that particular shame with _anyone_; that she might have been through the same soul-rending experience had _certainly_ not crossed his mind. "Where? When?" he asked, before backtracking. "You don't have to tell me." Not if she felt even half the agony he'd been through, holding that inside.

"Africa." Pip shrugged. "Child soldiers were…_are_ par for the course in some of the upheavals over there. I never…" she cleared her throat. "I never came, ah, face-to-face with ones that young like you did, they were still in training at that age." She shuddered and rolled her shoulders. "But twelve, fourteen for some of the older ones."

Rossi sneaked a sideways glance. Pip was pale and gnawing her lip. He analysed what she'd just said, turning it over in his mind. "You helped take out a training camp, didn't you?" he asked gently.

He'd made the question as kind as it was possible to do so, given the subject matter, and kept eye contact with her so she could see the lack of condemnation from him, but Pip still flinched violently.

"I hate profilers," she muttered. "Told you not to do that."

"I don't follow _every_ order you give me," Rossi objected, putting down his coffee to drape an arm around her shoulders. Shoulders that were rigid with tension, and he felt bad for making her dredge it up. He'd kept it buried too, so he understood.

"I was part of a team," she said eventually. "I planted an explosive device in their kitchen area, rigged to make it look like an accident. Then Angel picked off some that survived the detonation. I'm not proud of it, but I had my orders." The tension in her shoulders was easing, Rossi capitalised by pulling her a little closer. "Same as you."

It came to him then, that she'd shown no surprise when he'd told her what he'd done that night in the jungle. Her surprise had only been for the fact that girls had been involved in that kind of raid.

"You _knew_," he murmured in amazement, mostly to himself. "How on Earth did you know?"

"Not specifically or any details, but I had an idea. I saw the look on your face when you read what Dolan did in the Dorado Falls file," Pip replied quietly. "Half sick understanding, half just plain sick. I recognised that look, I wore it for months, and I knew it wasn't just for what you'd seen in the file."

"Nobody else noticed," Rossi noted a little morosely.

"I notice everything about you," she disputed. "You're…Oh, mush alert…you're the centre of everything for me, for however long this lasts, and probably beyond, because I'm not good at letting go. I know when your knee is bothering you, or if you've spent too long hunched over file and your neck aches. I know you want more sugar in your coffee when you're down and that you've given in to the inevitable and started dying your hair. I don't care by the way, whatever makes you feel comfortable…I'll probably have to do the same soon. I know if something upsets you because I have this overwhelming urge to protect you from it, to stand in front of it and be your shield. I know when I don't stand a chance of getting through and have to resort to shock tactics, like I did earlier. I know you because you're _important_. Because I love you." Pip was blushing furiously by then, such a heartfelt sappy speech completely out of character for her. "Urgh, don't make me do that again, I feel like I need a shower."

Rossi wished for a moment that the damn engagement ring wasn't hidden in Hotch's desk drawer, so he could show her, once and for all, just how long-term he planned their relationship to be. But it was, so he settled for the next best thing and yanked her closer, sealing his lips against hers and kissing her for all he was worth. Intended or not, that emotional little outburst had lifted the misery plaguing him.

"I take it you approve then, of me knowing you so well?" she asked teasingly when they came up for air.

"Definitely," he replied and kissed her again.

When they went back to bed, Rossi slept easy, clutched tightly in Pip's protective embrace. Exactly what he needed. Because she knew him so well.


	5. Painless (S7E4)

_Painless (S7E4)_

_**Life boils down to standing in line to get shit dropped on your head. Everyone's got a place in the queue, you can't get out of it, and just when you start to congratulate yourself on surviving your dose of shit, you discover that the line is actually circular - Scott Lynch**_

Rossi cursed to himself for getting tangled in Morgan and Reid's prank war. He was an unwilling participant, dragged in to be a distraction by Pip, who was helping Morgan get payback for Reid's stunt on the plane.

It had all started while they were out in Boise. There was something about high schools, everyone was thinking of their own time in the education system, and it had brought out the prankster in both Morgan and Reid. Although in fairness, it had been Morgan who started it.

The sense of fun hadn't infected Rossi and Hotch. They had been there before, to North Valley High School. They had been through the aftermath of Randy Slade the first time around, and while Rossi managed to muster a smile when Morgan gave the press Reid's name and number, he couldn't bring himself to join in. Somebody had to be the adult.

Reid's hastily aborted rant when he finally answered his constantly ringing cell brought another almost-smile to the surface, and Rossi started to wonder if that had been part of the reason Morgan had done it in the first place. That moment of amusement for all of them in the midst of Reid's rather dire analysis of UnSub had lightened the load and helped them focus. The true sense of family had finally started to return, and with that came their greatest strength, the reason the BAU was so successful. Each other. When he'd re-joined the BAU, his preferred working method was to do so alone. Having been absorbed and welcomed as part of the family, he couldn't comprehend wanting to do so again.

They got to Adams, but not before he'd blown a hole in a rather nice-looking restaurant and seriously injured several of the patrons. He made Hotch kill him, because the first non-fatal shot didn't stop him. Unable to feel pain, Bob Adams simply stood up and kept coming.

On the plane home, Rossi felt Reid twitch next to him as opposite them Morgan picked up his earphones. Reid snored exaggeratedly, clearly feigning sleep. Rossi watched carefully as Morgan leaned back to listen to his music. Morgan's eyes opened, at first narrowed in confusion, then widening in dawning comprehension. He jerked back to suddenly yank out the earphones and Rossi could hear the tinny sound of Reid screaming coming through them. He tried to keep the laugh in, but when Morgan's phone rang and Reid's voice started screaming out of that too, he couldn't contain it any more.

Morgan had vowed payback, despite Rossi trying to call it a day, waving white handkerchief between them in the hope that was the end of it.

It wasn't. Which was how Rossi had found himself playing the decoy, the distraction while Pip swiped Reid's cell. The plan was to set the language to Mandarin, a language Reid didn't know, and get it back in his bag before he noticed. How Morgan had persuaded her to do so, was currently a mystery.

It was a harmless prank that nonetheless made Rossi very nervous. If Strauss caught them at their little game, she would undoubtedly deliberately misunderstand and use it as ammunition against them. However, he had more immediately pressing concerns: he was rapidly running out of knowledge in the conversation he'd sparked up with Reid and Pip was nowhere to be seen. She was supposed to have been back already, and Rossi could see it all going wrong as Reid caught him out with a trick question.

"If you'd really been trying to argue with me about this, don't you think you ought to know that already?" asked Reid. He cocked his head, a sure sign that his IQ was about to flatten you as he leaped through to a conclusion that would have taken the rest of them hours. His eyes darted down briefly, then back up to meet Rossi's own with a disarming smile. "I think Agent Harker's done with my cell."

"There is no way you heard me!" objected Pip, standing up behind Reid. Rossi jumped, because while it seemed Reid had known she was there, he hadn't.

Reid smiled and turned around. "I didn't. I caught sight of movement in the reflection on Rossi's watch."

Pip winked at him. "I'll remember that for next time." She held out his cell. "Here. It's in Mandarin. For the record, this wasn't my idea and I'm operating under coercion. We good?"

Reid nodded. "That's ok, I've been meaning to learn Mandarin anyway," he said casually, as if learning a language was a simple exercise. For him, it probably was. "Did Morgan put you up to this?" He nodded again, answering his own question. "Of course he did, you owed him something, right? He'll have to try harder." Reid walked away with a serene smile, leaving Rossi and Pip alone in the bullpen.

"Morgan will have to make do with chopping off the end of all Reid's pencils," mused Rossi.

Pip grinned. "I suspect Reid has already beaten him to it and decapitated every pencil in Morgan's office."

Rossi had to agree.

"Actually, I'm kinda glad that didn't work," continued Pip. "We'd only have been targeted in the next round and I have no desire to incur the wrath of that boy's brains," commented Pip as the door closed behind Reid. "You want to get out of here?"

They separated in the parking lot, Pip heading in the direction of the store to get their steaks for dinner, Rossi to his house to retrieve his skillet. Pip had one of her own, but his was far better seasoned and distributed the heat more evenly. As he drove, he wondered again what favour it was Morgan had done Pip to be able to call on her assistance for his prank.

* * *

Leon and his girlfriend Amelia were standing in the communal hallway by the main door when Rossi pushed open the door.

"I'd wait if I were you. She got some mail that pissed her off and…" He stopped as a furious cry of outrage echoed down the stairs.

"GRIFFIN! I'm going to fucking kill you!" screamed Pip. "First you, then that fucking flying feather duster!"

Rossi sprinted up the stairs only to be dive-bombed by a feathery fury with sharp claws and even sharper beak. He ducked, shielding his face with the skillet. There was a scraping noise as his assailant futilely tried to get to him, then it was gone. Rossi lowered the skillet just in time for Griffin to bowl him over on the landing as he desperately tried to escape Pip storming after him.

"Balance our ledger, stop her!" Griffin cried desperately as he scuttled down the stairs as quickly as he was able, chasing the chuckling blue blur.

Rossi winced. What a way to have to repay the debt he owed the young man. He dropped the skillet and grabbed Pip as she rushed past and pulled her down to the floor with him, preventing her following Griffin down the stairs. The sound of his front door slamming and locking brought a snigger from Leon and a growl of fury from Pip.

"I'm going to break down his fucking door and rip his miserable fucking guts out," she snarled, writhing in his grasp. Rossi persevered and eventually, she stopped resisting him.

"Are you going to tell me what this is all about?" asked Rossi as they got to their feet. He kept a wary hand on Pip's arm in case she decided to try and get to Griffin through the closed door.

Pip sighed. "It's easier to show you."

She led the way back to her apartment, where the door was still stood open. She gestured him to precede her inside, but Rossi stopped in shock at the threshold. Her apartment was a mess, coated with foul-smelling guano and shredded material. He picked his way slowly through the devastation with mounting dismay. The cat figurines Garcia had bought were broken, many of her books ruined beyond repair. Cushions had been shredded, along with the rug; even the sofa had been mauled, the fabric ripped open and the stuffing scattered around the room.

The newly-remodelled kitchen was little better. Cupboards had been opened and anything even remotely edible raided or spoiled, and every surface was covered in deep scratches and more guano. The coffee pot lay in pieces on the floor and the flex had been snipped clean in half as if by a pair of shears. Even the dishcloth had been mutilated.

It extended into the bedroom too. Her bedding had been disembowelled in the same way the sofa had been and much of the contents of the closet was strewn across the floor, some in shreds, all spattered with guano; both her clothes and his own.

"My tux!" Rossi cried in dismay, then winced as Pip squawked with fury and thumped his shoulder.

"My whole fucking home is destroyed and you're worried about your fucking _dinner suit?_" she screeched.

Rossi grabbed her arm when she went to storm away. "_Bella_, that didn't come out quite the way I meant. I'm just…" He spread his hands gesturing to the chaos around them and slumped. "I'm just as upset as you about this. I'm so sorry, I know how you feel about your sanctuary." He did; it was his sanctuary too and it felt like it had been violated.

"I'm sorry too, Boss," murmured Griffin from behind them.

They turned to find Griffin stood in the living room, looking as devastated as the room around him.

"I don't know how he got in and…" He was interrupted by the reappearance of the criminal who'd ruined Pip's apartment. It flew in through the open fanlight window of the bathroom with a screech of triumph, at least answering the question of how it had gained access, if not the one of how it had escaped the apartment on ground level. The large Hyacinth Macaw perched itself on a bookcase near Griffin's shoulder and started to preen.

"Get that feathered menace out of my fucking apartment before I rip it apart," spat Pip, gesturing to the oblivious parrot. "And you're going to need a peg-leg to go with it by the time I'm finished with you." Rossi laid a restraining hand on her arm in case she carried out her threat.

"Cunt," said the parrot conversationally, briefly pausing its grooming regimen. "Go fuck yerself."

Rossi increased the strength of his grip as Pip jerked in response to the insult. Given the timing of delivery, it felt and sounded personal, but he knew it wasn't. Parrots tended to repeat things that got a reaction, and things like that would certainly garner a reaction from most people.

True to type, the parrot cackled at Pip's growl of fury and started to repeatedly scream profanities at the top of its voice.

Griffin reached up to shush it, and the bird promptly ripped his hand open with its can-opener beak. "Ow!" he yelped, trying to staunch the bleeding with his shirt. "I thought you liked me!"

"Fucked yer mom," replied the parrot haughtily and cawed loudly. "Yer best bit ran down yer mom's leg! Cunt!"

"Charming," muttered Griffin. "I rescued you from a dumpster, you ungrateful bird."

"Perhaps you should have fucking left it there," growled Pip.

While rescuing it had been the humanitarian thing to do, _or should that be aviatarian?_ Rossi's mind wondered, it seemed clear why the bird had been abandoned. He'd never kept one himself, but he knew people who had. The poor thing had clearly been abused or mistreated in some way, probably bought as a status symbol and taught to swear before becoming unmanageable, then dumped like trash. It had obviously bonded to some extent with Griffin, or it wouldn't have followed him back to Pip's apartment, but it showed no qualms in biting him either. Parrots needed space, intense interaction and things to occupy their vast intelligence or they could turn aggressive and overly territorial. Hyacinth macaws especially, could become neurotic very easily thanks in part to limitations with captive breeding. They weren't pets, from what he understood it was more like having a five-year-old child to look after and was a massive commitment.

Pip glared at Griffin, who seemed to shrink under the condemnation and shifted his gaze to Rossi as if sensing that he might be more understanding.

Rossi shook his head. "Just…take it away, get it out of sight, Griffin. It'll follow you if you go. And get that hand seen to."

The parrot would probably need to see an avian vet too, depending on what it had actually eaten in Pip's apartment rather than just destroying. The damage to her place was extensive, but all purely as a result of boredom of the parrot's part. With Griffin out at work all day, it had free reign to amuse itself once it had worked out how to escape. Depending on how long ago he'd rescued it and whether he planned to keep it long term, Griffin probably hadn't purchased all the necessaries to keep such a creature safely occupied and contained.

Griffin looked back and forth between them and seemed to realise that any more apologising would be fruitless until Pip calmed down, and left without another word. He passed Leon in the doorway, who had Rossi's skillet in one hand and the abandoned packet of steaks that were supposed to have been dinner in the other.

"Woah! Armageddon with bird shit, man," he commented, looking around at the mess before ducking as the parrot flew over his head to follow Griffin back down the stairs. "Told the kid when he found it, he should have taken the damn thing to the pound."

Rossi had to agree. He glanced over at Pip, who had gone from outrage to despair while he hadn't been looking. "Pack what clothes have survived, stay with me until this place is liveable," he offered. That she didn't argue worried him more than he liked to admit.

* * *

It wasn't until much later that Rossi remembered that Leon had mentioned Pip receiving some upsetting mail. He wasn't sure whether to ask about it, Pip had been withdrawn and nigh-on uncommunicative since they'd arrived back at the mansion. Dinner had been a quiet affair, the steaks had been lovely, but less enjoyable without the usual sparring match over dinner. She solved the issue by announcing she was taking a shower and tossing a letter at him before disappearing upstairs.

Rossi noted the prison mail stamp with unease. He knew of only one person who might send Pip mail from prison and it would certainly explain some of her foul mood. _And_ her unwillingness to talk about it. He unfolded the letter and started to read. It was short and littered with spelling errors; Rossi wondered again how someone as bright and beautiful as Pip had let such an ill-educated asshole into her life.

"_Dearest Pip," _it started, which had his hackles up immediately. _"One of the things I'm suposed to do for the 12 steps is about __apola...__apol...__forgivness and making it up to people." _

Rossi was pretty sure McGill had skipped a few steps somewhere along the line. Making amends was step 8 according to Pip and he thought it unlikely McGill had made such excellent progress. If any; by all accounts he had been unrepentant for his part in the death of Officer Noakes the whole way through the trial and if anything, _smug_ about the murder of his partner.

"_I'm writting to tell you I forgive you for putting me in jail and for my mom dieing." _

That was rich, considering. Especially as his mom had been at least as unbalanced as her offspring, if not more so. McGill had put _himself_ in prison.

"_If you wanted to make amends, visiting hours for significant others is 2-6 Monday, Wednesday and Friday and 12-4 on Saturday."_

If _she_ wanted to make amends? Significant others? _Visiting hours?_ He didn't seriously think…? Rossi kept reading, temper rising.

"_I also forgive you for cheating on me."_

Rossi had to put the letter down for a moment lest he rip it in half. It wasn't immediately clear whether McGill meant his original erroneous assumption regarding JP, or if he had since learned of her involvement with Rossi, but it didn't matter. McGill was delusional, any help he might have been getting regarding his mental health had clearly not worked. He still considered Pip as his, that the break-up of their tumultuous relationship hadn't happened.

Rossi took a deep breath and read the last line.

"_I'm counting the days until we see each other again. All my love, Damon." _There were five kisses.

"Makes for grim reading doesn't it?" commented Pip from the doorway a while later, wrapped in a towel and hair still damp. "The restraining order lapsed, and I never thought to renew it – why would I, with him locked up? Not to mention I'm not sure I qualify anymore, we've been separated too long." She sighed. "After reading that and then opening my front door…"

Rossi grimaced. Griffin was lucky Pip hadn't caught him when she chased him down the stairs.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, somewhat tentatively. She hadn't let him get involved in the prosecution and he wasn't sure how involved, or otherwise, she planned to let him be in her response to McGill's letter.

Pip shivered. "I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know what to do."

She looked so forlorn that Rossi put the letter down and crossed the room to fold her into his arms. "Whatever you do, I'll be right there with you," he said softly. "Can I make a suggestion?" he asked. Pip nodded against him. "Talk to JP. I know he's more of a politician these days," he added quickly as Pip opened her mouth to object, "but I think he'd still have some helpful advice. It's not like he doesn't know the history."

The original restraining order may have lapsed long ago without renewal, but there was a chance…

"Would Duffy be able to help you with a non-contact order?" It was a long shot, but a worthwhile one. If it was possible, Duffy would make it happen just because Pip asked him.

"Maybe," she whispered into his shoulder. "I don't want to think about it." She raised her eyes to his. "I know you said never to forget something else, but…" She trailed off, looking hopeful. "Do you…?"

Rossi sighed. He couldn't deny her. He needed something to take his mind off McGill's letter too and perhaps the pleasure they would achieve together was a good way to erase him. He kissed her in response, confident she would interpret it correctly.

She did. Pip shed the towel and left it on the living room floor as they made their way upstairs, kissing and caressing as they went.


	6. From Childhood's Hour (S7E5)

_From Childhood's Hour (S7E5)_

_**Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends - J.R.R. Tolkien**_

Rossi whistled as he buttoned his cuffs. It was Sunday, the sun was out, and he was meeting one of his oldest and truest friends for breakfast.

"Are you going to let me meet her?" asked Pip, still sprawled naked in his bed and drowsy from their lovemaking. It was a sight he'd still like to see every morning, but Pip was adamant about them each keeping their own space, once she could move back home again. He was just happy to make the most of the time he had, her place still looked like a bomb site while Todd and Griffin set it to rights. The pair had their work cut out.

Pip snuggled into his pillow. "I want to swap stories about you with her," she said as she lazily worked her way under the covers.

"Telling me that is a good way to make sure it never happens," he replied with a smirk. "I'd like you to meet Carolyn, but after so long I want to have a chance to catch up first before you two closet yourselves away to talk about me."

Pip smirked, sealing his fate. Pip would meet Carolyn, and it would happen exactly as he'd predicted, there would be no stopping it and it seemed pointless to try.

Rossi leaned down over the bed and brushed a kiss against her lips. "I'll see you later. With Carolyn," he added with a smile as Pip raised an eyebrow. "We'll come back here for lunch, how about that?"

"Acceptable," Pip deadpanned, before breaking out in a huge grin. "Oh, this is going to be so much _fun_."

Rossi groaned, but good-naturedly. He should be grateful that Pip was so accepting of his close friendship with his ex-wife, but he was far more concerned about whatever scheme they'd cook up between them. They were both strong intelligent women who knew him far too well. He was _doomed_.

* * *

Pip called him halfway through selecting breakfast to tell him she was going to the office to deal with something, ask that he bring lunch back with him, and remind him that he should eat more vitamins. Rossi put down his tray of fried food with a sigh. She was right, but that didn't mean he had to enjoy it. When he sat back down at the table Carolyn had saved, she teased him about the plate of fruit he had in front of him, the same teasing smile on her face as Pip had sported when he left her earlier.

"So, give me the update. Anybody serious in your life?" she asked.

"Well, there are all those serial killers; they're pretty serious," Rossi quipped.

Carolyn rolled her eyes a little. "I meant in your personal life."

"No, there isn't."

She gave him one of those looks, that expression that said she knew he wasn't telling the truth. It was a game they'd played, part of the fun in their relationship, even after the divorce.

Rossi smiled, letting her know she'd caught him. "How about you?" he asked quickly. Since she knew there _was_ someone, she'd quickly start the friendly cross-examination and he wanted to know about her before he had to submit to the quizzing.

She dodged the question with a non-committal hum. "You know, David, I've been wanting…"

Whatever Carolyn was going to say was cut off by the ringing of his cell phone for the second time. Rossi glanced at it, hoping it was Pip and that he could ignore it for the moment. It _was_ Pip, but he couldn't ignore it. He had a case, Pip was calling him into work. "Damn it, I…"

Carolyn offered him a rueful half-smile. "You got to go. I know. It's okay. It's comforting to know that some things never change."

His cell had always chimed in at the wrong moment, usually in the middle of something important they needed to talk about. Despite the friendly terms they had parted on, the frequent and unpredictable interruptions into their private life by his work had always been a bone of contention.

"Look, how much longer are you gonna be in town?" asked Rossi, determined that they would spend at least some of the time they had planned together, even if it couldn't be right at that moment. Especially since there seemed to be something Carolyn wanted to discuss.

"About a week or so, probably."

"Why don't you come over to my place for dinner before you head back?" he offered. "I still make a monster cioppino." Pip would love to have Carolyn over for dinner, and there was the hopeful possibility that talking whilst eating something quite so messy would limit the number of embarrassing stories about him the two of them could exchange.

Carolyn nodded. "I would like that very much."

When he phoned her from the jet to let her know he'd be out of town for a few days, Carolyn sounded…a little odd. Rossi couldn't quite put his finger on it. It distracted him all day, in quiet moments he would find himself replaying their conversation in his head, wondering over her choice of words and tone of voice.

It was perhaps inevitable that it was Emily who caught him out. She was over-compensating with all of them in an attempt to convince both them and herself that she was back, and back to stay. She took far more notice of how each of them was doing than perhaps she had in the past, and Rossi had seen her questioning gaze more than once as he mulled over Carolyn's words. It was when they were talking to Garcia, asking her to cross-reference 911 calls that the penny finally dropped, and he couldn't hide his reaction from her.

It wasn't what Carolyn had said that had him on edge, it was _the way_ she'd said it. Like Garcia, Carolyn had sounded almost _flirty_. As she always was when she wanted something from him that she wasn't sure he'd want to do.

Emily misunderstood the dilemma, but without being able to share _all_ the information, that was always going to be the case. Carolyn _had_ sounded like she was putting the feelers out, but not quite for what Emily assumed. Only time would tell what it was all about.

* * *

"…and he just stood there dripping with mud, moaning about his new shoes!" Carolyn shot him a fond look as Pip burst into laughter. Their first date had been a disaster, between his old car and foul weather, they'd never made it to the restaurant.

"Tell me he at least bought you dinner?" asked Pip, mirth dancing in her eyes.

"He did actually," replied Carolyn with a smile. Rossi winced and hid behind his hand, he knew what was coming next. "He treated me from the vending machine at the breakdown yard. I spent two solid days worshipping the white throne from one end or the other after that sandwich."

Both women laughed, and Rossi gave Carolyn a rueful smile. The tale of their second date was just as bad as the first, and he knew it would shortly follow. Seduction had been an art he had yet to perfect in those days. It was a miracle she'd agreed to a second date after the first, and an even greater one that he had got a third after the second.

"A week later…" Carolyn started, and was interrupted by the ringing of Pip's cell, somewhat to Rossi's relief. Dinner had been accompanied by a parade of his most embarrassing misfortunes, all told with Carolyn's familiar comic flair. Pip had already pushed back her bowl, stuffed with seafood, and Rossi had been hoping for a little time with Carolyn to himself once they'd eaten. Not to mention that their second date was a particularly unflattering tale.

"Ah, that's the Captain," said Pip, looking at the caller display, with an apologetic glance up at Carolyn. "I need to get this, I'll leave you two to catch up properly. If I don't see you before you go, it's been amazing to meet you." She shot Rossi a cheeky grin. "I've got lots of new extortion material now."

Pip bounced out of the room, cell already held to her ear. "Evening, Captain! You'll _never_ guess who I just met…" Her voice faded as she climbed the stairs.

Rossi was undecided about Perez's continued involvement in Pip's life. Their relationship had been a little strained after the shooting of the DoD mole, but it seemed the General was still holding to his original promise of checking up on her. Rossi just wasn't convinced that the man's intentions were entirely honourable.

"You look like you just swallowed a wasp," commented Carolyn. Rossi huffed out a half-hearted chuckle that faded into a frown as he started to clear the table. "You want a hand?" she asked.

"No, no, it's fine. You just sit there."

Carolyn sipped her wine. She'd drunk more than was usual for her that evening and paused to consider him over her glass. "So, what's the meaning behind that constipated expression?"

Rossi cast a sour glance in the direction Pip had gone. "I'm not sure about that friend of hers," he admitted finally. "I don't entirely trust him, and I certainly don't trust him with her."

"You don't think they…"

He shook his head as he loaded the dishwasher. "No, not like that; it's not in her nature. It's just…he used to be her commanding officer, and Pip trusts him implicitly. I understand that kind of bond, but he's now a very powerful man and I don't think he'd hesitate to use it for his own advantage and then throw her to the wolves." He'd already displayed elements of that, in the way he'd let Pip take the law into her own hands with Rostov. "And I think she'd let him," he added quietly.

Carolyn laughed. "You're getting a little paranoid in your old age, David."

"Perhaps," he agreed with a shrug. "It's my job."

Carolyn smiled. "I think she's more than capable of looking after herself. You've finally met your match."

"You have _no_ idea," drawled Rossi with a smirk. "She's infuriating, bossy, argumentative and an absolute terror in the office, but one smile and I'd do anything for her."

"I think she loves you very much," she said. "But getting women to fall in love with you was never difficult, was it?" They shared a brief moment of rueful understanding. No, that had never been a problem; even between the two of them and the series of calamities that was their first few months together. The problems usually came along later.

"Sure you don't want any help?" she offered again.

Rossi tossed the tea towel back on the counter. "Done," he said, gesturing to the kitchen. Keeping to their usual pattern, Pip had tidied up after him as he cooked, so there had been minimal clear-up afterwards – the dishwasher was doing most of the heavy lifting.

"Sit down. Relax," he added, because Carolyn seemed a little on edge, despite her gentle teasing only moments before.

She complimented his cooking, but it felt like awkward small talk, and his attempt at a joke fell a little flat. She gave him his opening by asking for more wine, because he'd been meaning to enquire about her increased intake. Perhaps it was the thing with Strauss had made him notice it, but Carolyn had never been a fan of the way alcohol made her feel and she had surprised him by keeping pace with he and Pip over dinner.

He knew whatever it was on her mind was serious, because she brought up what they had always jokingly called their "divorce vows", the pledge they'd made to remain friends and always be there if the other called. The loss of James had helped to tear them apart, but had also forged something permanent between them. Built on a shared experience that could be told to another but not _shared _in the same way, they had made much better friends than spouses.

ALS. Well, it didn't get much more serious than that, did it? Christ on a fucking bike. Rossi felt his dinner do a slow, almost lazy roll in his stomach and had to swallow, _hard,_ to prevent its immediate reappearance. Why hadn't she told him sooner? His dear, sweet, beautiful Carolyn was dying, and she hadn't told him. He blinked as his eyes started to sting.

"Why didn't you call me earlier?" he managed. "I could've…" He had money, pots of it. He could have got her into some treatment programme, or drug trials, or…or _something_. Why hadn't she told him?

Carolyn followed her devastating news with an even more devastating request: she wanted his help to die. She was asking him to be the "assist" part of an assisted suicide. She'd given up. Struck dumb with shock and pre-emptive grief, Rossi could only hold her hand and try not to bawl like a kid. The image of Carolyn standing proudly beside him as he exchanged vows with Pip flitted across his mind. That would never be able to happen, and that thought was the straw that broke the camel's back. Rossi hung his head and sobbed aloud.

He felt Carolyn stand and remove her hand from his to lay it on his shoulder. "David…" She stopped, and Rossi glanced up to see Pip in the doorway exchanging a long look with Carolyn. "Perhaps it's time I went."

Rossi was torn. If she didn't have long left – a realisation that caused a fresh wave of tears to stream down his face, then he wanted some of that precious time with her. Equally, he wanted to hide himself away and howl his desolation into Pip's hair, to let her sooth him so he could think clearly.

His two wives, because Pip had been his wife in his mind for a long time, made the decision for him. Carolyn left with a peck on his cheek and a murmured conversation with Pip as she escorted her to the door.

Rossi drained the remains of his wine and contemplated the empty glass. He wanted something stronger, but for the moment was frozen in place; stuck in time, reliving his conversation with Carolyn over and over. Pip sat on the arm of the chair minutes, hours or days later, having shown Carolyn out. She laid a hand on his shaking shoulders; his whole body was shaking, he realised, and said something he couldn't hear. The glass in his hand quivered and in a sudden fit of pent-up emotion, Rossi hurled it at the fireplace.

Crystal shards flew in a fine spray, glittering in the lamplight like little diamonds on the floor. "She's got…she wants me to…she asked…" he stuttered through heaving breaths.

"I know," said Pip shortly.

"What do I _do?_" he wailed. "_Bella_ please…help me…oh God…I…"

Pip grabbed him as he devolved into incoherency and held on tight until he'd worn himself out.

"What do I do?" he repeated in a whisper, realising that at some point he'd slid off the chair and dragged Pip down with him, the pair of them kneeling on the rug like penitent sinners in prayer. "I can't make that choice."

"_Nobody_ should have to make that choice," said Pip angrily, "but I will be there with you no matter what you decide," she added more gently. "I can't make up your mind for you, you have to do what's right with your conscience."

Which was what? How the fuck was he supposed to know that?


	7. Epilogue (S7E6)

_Epilogue (S7E6)_

_**Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome - Isaac Asimov**_

Rossi sat in the bullpen, absently gazing at the magazine in front of him. He wasn't reading it and would have been holding it upside down if not for Pip, who had wordlessly flipped it right way up as she passed on her way to her desk earlier.

Rossi felt like he was being ripped open, like criminals used to be – each limb tied to a different horse and then the horses whipped to a stampede that tore the victim apart. He missed Pip's steadying presence at his side, her valued counsel in times of stress, but they'd barely spoken since having a blazing row the morning after Carolyn's visit. His house felt huge and empty without her.

She was angry at Carolyn for putting him in such a position, Rossi was angry at her for not understanding that Carolyn had no choice – it wasn't like she had anyone else to turn to with such a request. They'd both said things in the heat of the moment and neither of them were prepared to back down. Added to that, Carolyn was frustrated with both of them for not focusing on what she, not entirely unfairly, thought was more important – namely, her wish to die on her own terms.

It was a complicated issue. Pip had rightly, loudly and repeatedly, pointed out that Virginia law didn't allow for assisted suicide. Having looked it up, Rossi knew that at worst he could be charged with manslaughter and could kiss both his freedom and the remains of his FBI career goodbye. He also knew that any investigation, regardless of the outcome for him, would uncover Pip's involvement in his life and his bed, which would also ruin her career. Not to mention that as a Catholic, Rossi was fundamentally against the idea of suicide. God put people on the Earth, and he could damn well decide when to take them away again, even if that meant turning someone UnSub to do it; that's why he also made profilers to catch them. Removing yourself by your own means was tantamount to abandoning your post or going AWOL.

On the other hand, prognosis for ALS was grim. There was no question Carolyn was going to die, it was just a matter of time and suffering. In those circumstances, wasn't it fairer to let her do whatever she wanted, when she wanted; rather than spending her last hours in pain, surrounded by machines and strangers in a hospital? He didn't know.

All he did know, was that the issue was rapidly ruining the best thing that had ever happened to him: his relationship with Pip. Only a few days previously, he'd been planning on how to propose. With Carolyn's request bearing down on them like a lead weight it was all he could do to be civil to Pip, her wilful lack of understanding about how he and Carolyn worked just infuriating him.

Pip however, was perfectly polite. Chillingly so, in fact. None of the cheerful, affectionate profanity, none of the lovingly pointed barbs he was accustomed to. If she could get away with it, she ignored him entirely, sending Phillips in her stead to deliver messages and paperwork.

The profilers caught him out eventually. Gazing into space and unable to talk his way out of it was a red flag for all of them. Still deep in conversation with a blonde woman Rossi didn't recognise, Pip huffed as Emily asked about "the other night". Oh Lord, if only she knew, maybe she'd have kept her mouth shut. Going above and beyond to try and bond with them all again apparently didn't include subtlety on her part, although she seemed to quickly realise she'd mis-stepped. He knew they were just concerned but unable to articulate his major problem with the whole dilemma, he was left with giving them empty reassurances and a smile that dropped off his face as soon as their backs were turned. It was somewhat of a relief to catch a case.

Rossi trudged in the direction of the conference room, tiredly following the crowd. He hadn't slept well since Carolyn's visit and probably wouldn't while they were out on a case either. Oh good, like he needed help in that department.

Pip caught his gaze as he looked back across the bullpen, more than she'd done in almost two days. Somehow that helped.

* * *

It was hot enough in Angeles National Forest that Hotch abandoned his suit and tie, but even that radical shift in wardrobe didn't distract Rossi from the uncomfortable feeling that the universe was laughing at him. The whole case was about death and the afterlife, specifically the UnSub's perception and relationship with it. If that wasn't a slap in the face by the Powers That Be, he didn't know what was. His only saving grace was that it was a relatively local case so he could sleep in his own bed at night.

Carolyn rang while they were finalising the profile. Rossi had hoped she was calling to say she had changed her mind, that she had decided to take his offer of a treatment programme or drug trial, but in his heart, he knew it wasn't.

"Hey." He couldn't manage any more than that.

"David…" Carolyn sounded weaker than before and Rossi's stomach turned over. She wasn't calling to retract her request. She was calling to say she needed to cut down his thinking time. "About what we discussed…" They hadn't _discussed_ it. She'd fucking broadsided him with it and barely 48 hours later was calling him to chase up on an answer. "I need to see you when your case is over."

"Carolyn…" Rossi paced the office. That wasn't enough time! For a moment, he felt a flash of anger. To shock him with the news of her diagnosis, then with her request and then to all but demand he leap into action while he was supposed to be thinking about an UnSub? It wasn't fair. None of it was fucking fair, not the diagnosis, not what she'd asked of him, none of it.

"It's progressing fast now," she murmured. "I don't have many good days left in me."

Rossi sighed, the anger immediately doused by grief. "I'll come and see you once we're done," he promised, deliberately avoiding giving her the direct answer he knew she wanted.

Pip arrived quietly in his doorway as he hung up. "Dave? Can I talk to you?" she asked softly. "I think…"

"No, you can't," snarled Rossi. "I know what you think, I don't need to hear it again. Leave me alone! Go away and give me some fucking space!"

He regretted it as soon as Pip left as silently as she'd arrived. Pushing her away wasn't going to help. He punished himself by spending the night in his office alone, staring the wall as he mulled it all over in his head; at least that's what he told himself. It had nothing to do with avoiding his empty house. Really, it wasn't.

It was starting to get light once more before the swirling thoughts finally coalesced into something tangible. He didn't have a choice. Carolyn had asked him by citing their friendship vows, but he couldn't do it. It wasn't just his faith on the line, it was his career and his freedom as well; possibly Pip's too. Regardless of how badly he had treated her recently and whether he had a relationship to go back to, he couldn't ruin her life as well. He'd have to tell Carolyn that he couldn't help her. He'd have to try again to convince her to take life-extending treatment of some kind, however fruitless that may be.

When his door opened, Rossi looked up hoping it was Pip, but it was Emily. Given how he'd spent his evening, Rossi didn't have the wherewithal to withhold Carolyn's diagnosis and devastating request when Emily asked. She already knew Carolyn had been over for dinner and given the outcome of that, there was no way to hide it much longer. He would have like to have said talking about it helped, but it really didn't. Like many things spoken aloud, voicing it just made it more real.

He didn't want to hang on every word of Reid's account of the bright light when he died, but he did. He did when Em spoke too, unable to stop himself wondering which experience Carolyn would have and whether his unwillingness to help her would change it for the worse. In a terrible way he couldn't wait for the case to be over, so her request wasn't hanging over him anymore.

He knocked on the door of 118 later that evening with a heavy heart that only seemed to get heavier as Carolyn opened the door. She walked like an old woman, bowed by the weight of years. She was old before her time and it made him doubt his decision for a moment.

He needn't have worried, she knew him well enough to know he couldn't do it. Cowardice or honour, either way, he couldn't help her. He was already too late, she'd taken matters into her own hands. All he could do was sit with her and hold her. He clutched her to him and murmured soothingly that she'd see James once more; he waited with tears streaming down his face while his first love surrendered to death.

* * *

She was gone. Rossi laid Carolyn down and sat there for an unknowable length of time, numb and lost. Eventually he stood, with the vague idea that he should be doing something. There were people to call, things to arrange, even if he couldn't immediately recall who or what they were. He staggered, his legs unwilling to bear his weight after so long sitting awkwardly and Rossi resigned himself to an undignified landing. It seemed fitting after watching Carolyn die in his arms. The pain of a bloody nose might even wake him up a bit.

Except it didn't. Strong arms caught him, held him. Soft hands ran their way through his hair and a gentle voice murmured reassurances in his ear. It took him a long time to realise it was Pip who had caught him, the muscles of her stomach and thighs trembling with the strain of holding his greater bodyweight aloft, despite bracing herself against a convenient desk. She ushered him to a chair and eased him down gently as if he were about to shatter into a thousand pieces. Probably not far off the truth, he certainly felt broken. She busied herself making the calls he should have made, tidying up after Carolyn's departure from the world.

Some time later, and he couldn't have said how much later, she knelt in front of him. "Dave? Metro are here. Can you answer their questions now or shall I take you to get checked over by a medic first?"

The prospect of hospitals didn't appeal after what Carolyn had said as she died, and Rossi struggled to his feet. "I'm ok," he lied.

Pip shot him a polite disbelieving look but didn't contradict him and allowed one of the patrolmen closer. When had they arrived? He'd been out of it longer than he thought possible.

The questions were routine to start with. What was his relationship with the deceased? How did he come to be in her hotel room? As the questions got more pointed and suspicious, Pip shifted so she was in front of him like a shield. In terms of stature, it didn't really work – she barely came up to his chest. In terms of force of personality and sheer presence she was like a 12-foot barricade and Rossi gratefully sheltered behind her and let himself be defended. He was far too tired and numb to do it.

"Did you call 911? Did you even _try_ to get her medical assistance?"

"No," Rossi admitted. Carolyn had begged him not to. "She…" Pip took a tiny step backwards and deliberately trod on his toe. Rossi fell silent.

"We were too late," interrupted Pip smoothly. "We thought she might do something in an attempt to ease her pain from a cruel disease, but we didn't think she'd take it so far."

Truth, in a form.

The patrolman peered down at her. "Where were you at time of death?"

"Parking the damn car," snapped Pip belligerently, and Rossi wondered why she was lying. He knew she was – he knew her well enough to pick it up instantly. "Then I ran up two flights of stairs as fast as I could, but I _still_ didn't get here in time."

"I recognise that voice," said a man from the other side of the room.

Pip's brow furrowed. "Matt?" she asked in confused wonder.

A taller patrolman ushered his junior colleague out of the way, not entirely gently. "Sergeant Mike Connelly…Pippa! What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," she retorted. "Last time I saw you, you'd taken your vows and joined a monastery." She cocked her head. "Under your previous name, that was," she added pointedly. "I'm pretty sure that f-bomb just cost you an Our Father or two, Brother Callahan."

Connelly winced. "Keep it down will ya?" He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. "Didn't know you knew about that."

Pip snorted and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, I do. Look, all this…" She waved her hand around indicating the bustle of activity around them, "is unnecessary. Carolyn wanted to be free of the pain and now she is. We got here too late to do anything about it. If we'd called an ambulance she'd still be dead, but would have died in the ER as a crash team fought to keep her alive at any cost. That isn't living, nor is it fair. At least this way she had a good friend at her side and went peacefully without suffering."

Connelly considered that. "You know how we Catholics view suicide," he murmured.

Pip took a step forward into his personal space and held onto his shirt when he tried to back out of the way. "I don't have time for you and your ethics discussion, Matt," she growled. "It was complications due to ALS; misadventure, if you will. In her confused mental state, Carolyn took too many pain pills. Do we understand each other, or should I enlighten your family about your new life? Or are you the inside man these days with your new name? Should I be contacting Internal Affairs instead?"

Connelly swallowed hard and nodded. "ALS. Right."

"Can I take him home?" she pressed, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in Rossi's direction.

Connelly nodded mutely and skittered out of Pip's way as she towed Rossi out of the room, away from Carolyn's body, away from the smell of death.

"What did you mean?" asked Rossi as Pip weaved through the traffic in his car.

"Hmm?" Pip glanced across from the driver seat with a puzzled frown.

"The guy…sergeant, um…Mike, Matt?" Rossi managed. For some reason, thinking and memory processes were slow and disjointed and for a second, he couldn't understand why. Then it hit him all over again. Carolyn was dead. He wondered how long it would be before he stopped running into that realisation like it was a surprise. "You asked him about being the inside man."

Pip uttered a bark of bitter laughter. "Historically his family were foot soldiers for The Westies, I doubt his pop would be impressed to find out his heir apparent has taken the blue instead of vestments. It's not the sort of family business you can just walk out of."

"Oh."

He had multitudes of questions he wanted to ask – how she knew where Carolyn's hotel room was, for a start, but a couple of miles went by in silence and Rossi felt his eyes getting heavy. He hadn't slept in a while and gratefully succumbed to the darkness.

* * *

It was JP who was with him when he woke, much to Rossi's confusion. He looked around for Pip, the last thing he remembered clearly was being in the car with her. He didn't remember laying down to sleep on his sofa fully-dressed, and he certainly didn't remember JP being there. Daylight streamed in through the open curtains, cheerily disputing the heavy blackness Rossi felt hanging over him.

JP raised an eyebrow in his direction. "She's not here, if it's Pip you're looking for," he said heavily.

Of course it was Pip he was looking for, what kind of comment was that? Rossi rolled himself upright and scrubbed his face with one hand, trying to wake up. JP thrust coffee in his general direction and Rossi accepted it as manna from heaven. It was made just the way Pip did, in fact it might even have been Pip's fabled "morning brew". He tilted the cup, watching as the liquid considered it for a moment before complying with gravity. Yep, definitely Pip's coffee.

"I was starting to get worried," added JP, "you slept for nearly eighteen hours; I'm guessing you've not had any recently. Much longer and I was going to wake you up with a bucket of water to the face."

"My soft furnishings are grateful," muttered Rossi cradling the mug like a lifeline.

"I'm guessing she called you to stay with me while she ran some errands," he mused mostly to himself, once the first mouthful had hit the bloodstream.

JP snorted. "Something like that."

"When will she be back?" He needed to talk to her, quite urgently. He needed to mend the rift that had formed between them over Carolyn's request, and swiftly before it could fester and widen. With sleep, the question of why she'd lied to the police also became more intriguing, like a nagging hangnail he couldn't quite get to.

"Hard to say."

Rossi finally looked up to see the unhappy expression on JP's face. Unhappy with _him_, Rossi realised. JP was disappointed, and despite the turmoil of the past few days, that carved another gouge in Rossi's heart.

"Where is she?" he asked, suddenly fearing the answer. "I need to talk to her…I said some things…"

"Oh, I'm sure you did," sneered JP. "What _exactly_ did you say to her?"

Rossi squinted up at the younger man, towering above him in his fury. He stood to regain some advantage, but JP stepped forward instead of backwards as expected.

"Stop trying to think with your muscles!" he growled, fists clenched at his sides as he loomed over Rossi. "_Use your __**other**__ brain! _What did you fucking say to her?"

Rossi took a deep breath, trying not to feel intimidated by his friend's unusual display of temper. "I told her to leave me alone. She came to ask me something and I yelled at her. Told her to give me some space. I was hurting and she…" Rossi stopped and looked into JP's furious eyes. "She knew I didn't mean…" he breathed. "Didn't she?"

"She's a strong and independent woman," commented JP. "On the outside, at least. But beneath that…"

He let it hang in the air, but Rossi was already punishing himself inside. Pip's outward confidence wasn't reflected internally – he _knew_ that.

JP nodded as he watched the realisation sink in. "So, when you appeared to take Carolyn's side, someone you loved before you met her…"

"It felt like betrayal," finished Rossi, nodding his understanding. What a monumental fuck up. "Where is she?" he asked softly.

"I know your ex-wife just died, but you're a fucking idiot, Dave. You told her to leave you alone and give you space." The evening edition newspaper was dropped in front of him, folded to show the huge caps lock headline proclaiming the death of the FARC leader, Alfonso Cano. "At the moment, I think it's safe to say she's in Columbia. Is that space enough for you?"

When Rossi looked up in shock, JP dropped a necklace and a bracelet on the coffee table, both with intricate apple charms. They landed with an ominous clang that seemed to Rossi to be both far away like a distant rumble of thunder, and right up close to his eardrum at the same time.

"Found them on the porch…" JP started, but Rossi didn't hear the rest. Pip had returned his gifts, a message as clear as day and a blow that felt far heavier than Carolyn's death. He nodded absently, realising vaguely that JP had asked a question; but his eyes remained fixed on the jewellery which seemed to represent the end of his relationship with Pip.

* * *

_A/N: There's a new episode of Missing Conversations up that slots in part way through through this chapter._


End file.
